


Oksana

by Lexus (Beautiful_Ruin)



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F, TW: double homicide, TW: mention of incest that did not actually happen, TW: more graphic depictions of violence, TW: underage, TW: underage violence, TW: use of drugs to incapacitate people, graphic depictions of violence that may be disturbing, read the summary, the child abuse is mostly emotional with a bit of physical which is hinted at in canon, the underage will not be too graphic but it is necessary for the story's development, there are warnings all over the place for this fic, tw: child abuse, we have non-sexual choking which provokes later masturbation, we have poison making, will update tags as I go but wanted to get all the triggers listed ahead of time
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-06
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:22:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 8
Words: 22,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25738756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beautiful_Ruin/pseuds/Lexus
Summary: Hi all. This is very different from the things I have written before, and a lot of this has been difficult to write, but I wanted to get into Villanelle's head from the beginning. There are many triggers in this story, including emotional and physical child abuse and neglect, graphic descriptions of violence (brief but multiple) that may bother some people, and there will be underage sex though I will not get graphic with that.This is basically a look at Villanelle from the time she was born until we see her on the screen, and when she reaches canon, I will introduce Eve and the MI6 team. This will be an Eve/Villanelle fic eventually, that is the end game, it will just be... different. I can't jump easily into Villanelle's head, so I backtracked and we will see how this goes.Please take the warnings seriously... I do not want anyone blindsided.
Relationships: Anna Leonova/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova, Eve Polastri/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova, Nadia Kadomtseva/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova, Villanelle | Oksana Astankova/OFC
Comments: 54
Kudos: 74





	1. Zero to Eight

**Author's Note:**

> (I am still writing Good Girl, don't worry.)

When Oksana is born, it is a joyous event. The novelty wears off quickly.

***

Two weeks later, there is a party. “Where is the baby?” a guest asks the new mother.

“She is with a sitter,” Tatiana replies, pouring another drink.

No one can hear Oksana crying over the music.

***

“Ma-ma.” Oksana is two and a half.

“Leave me alone,” Tatiana snaps.

“Ma-ma,” Oksana repeats. “Eat. Eat.”

The child’s father is at work and Tatiana does not want to deal with this, not at all. She grabs a box of cereal and throws it at the child.

“Eat. Eat,” Oksana says, her little fingers prying at the box to open it. She is sitting on the floor in the middle of the kitchen, and she gets the box open, shoving her hand in to grab some wheat squares. She is still on the floor eating wheat squares when her father gets home from work.

“Little Princess!” he says, scooping her up and kissing all over her face. “What are you doing in here by yourself? How much cereal have you eaten, hmm?”

Oksana laughs and points to her mouth. “Drink. Drink.” This is how she tells him she is so very thirsty.

***

“I sick.”

Oksana is four and her language is delayed because her mother doesn’t speak to her and her father works most of the time.

“I don’t care. You’re going to school.”

“Sick, Ma-ma.”

“You’re not staying home. Get up.”

Oksana has learned better than to cry in front of Mama. She’s not fast enough getting up and Mama grabs her by the arm, jerking her out of bed and dragging her out to the school bus in her pajamas.

When the school calls Tatiana to pick her up because she’s in the nurse’s office vomiting, Tatiana doesn’t answer.

***

Oksana makes her first friend when she is five. A boy in her kindergarten class named Ziev.

They are playing after school and Oksana breaks Mama’s lamp.

Mama breaks her arm.

Ziev’s mama never allows him to come back to her house.

A neighbor comes by the house that night and takes Oksana to the hospital for a cast.

The police never come.

***

When she is six, the school gives Oksana free speech therapy three times a week during lunch. It is important not to mention it to Mama, because the school tells her that Mama said no. She doesn’t like to lie, but she wants to speak like everyone else, and she likes the lessons, and she agrees not to tell.

By the end of first grade she is all caught up. Her teachers tell her how smart she is and how fast she learns, and Oksana loves school. It is her favorite place to be. She is even learning to read.

When she reads her first book to Dad, he is excited. He tells her how proud he is and hugs and kisses her, and Mama leaves the house.

“Why doesn’t Mama like me?” Oksana asks when she’s gone.

“Don’t be silly, my little princess.”

But Oksana doesn’t feel silly. Mama is not very good at pretending, and Oksana knows she isn’t wanted. She wishes she could live with another family, or just with Dad, if he would not have to work so much.

She makes her own lunch the next morning and dresses herself and gets on the bus. It is the last day of school for the year and besides swimming, Oksana is not happy about summer starting tomorrow. She wants to go to school every day.

“Your socks don’t match,” someone says on the bus.

“I like it this way,” Oksana replies, narrowing her eyes. She will not tell this boy that these are the only clean socks she can find until she does her laundry after school.

“It is stupid.” The boy makes a terrible mistake.

Oksana tries to ignore him, but he laughs. She thinks of Mama laughing when she asks for new school clothes and she thinks of Mama laughing when she falls and hurts herself, and she is out of her seat, smashing the boy’s head into a window of the bus, her hands squeezing him around the throat, and kids are screaming all around her.

She sees blood and freezes, her eyes glassy as she stares at the dark red stuff dripping down the side of the boy’s face, and she doesn’t know what happens next because she is staring at the blood and she feels so strange, and so good, and so happy, and the next thing she knows she is blinking her eyes and looking up at the bus driver, and they are both outside of the bus, next to the bus, and she wonders when did the bus stop?

She feels something on her hand and looks down. There is blood all over it and under her fingernails. It is wet. She moves her fingers and tilts her head. It is wet but it is sticky, too, and she wonders how it would taste.

Her wrist is grabbed when she lifts it toward her mouth and she looks at the bus driver again. “Why did we stop?”

The bus driver looks scared as he hears her question and she wonders if something bad has happened. She thinks he doesn’t want to tell her if something bad has happened, because he shakes his head and doesn’t say anything.

She only realizes she is in trouble when she sees Mama.

Mama takes her home and scrubs her hands clean and slaps her. “What is wrong with you?”

Mama never yells, but her quiet voice is worse. Oksana’s cheek hurts and her hands hurt and she does not know how to answer the question. Mama sends her to bed.

***

Oksana is very excited to start second grade. The summer is boring and she does not like being at home. She counts the days on a calendar she hides in her pillowcase, and when the day comes to return to school, she doesn’t even care that her clothes don’t fit right and her shoes hurt her feet because she will see her teachers again and she will learn things and she will have books to read.

She is on her way out the door when Mama grabs her by the elbow. She freezes, tense, and waits.

“If you hurt another child they will take you out of the school forever,” Mama says, and Oksana feels something heavy in the pit of her stomach. Will there be more?

Mama lets go of her elbow and she rushes down the stairs to wait for the bus.

No one wants to sit with her, not even Ziev. “Why?” she asks him.

“Because I don’t want you to hurt me,” he says.

“I will not,” she says. “I want you to sit next to me.”

He won’t look at her. “My mom says I can’t.”

Oksana narrows her eyes, feeling things she doesn’t know how to deal with start bubbling up inside her. “You will be sorry.”

She does not see the look on his face because she turns away from him and sits by herself, staring out the window. She feels funny.

It is halfway through the first week of second grade when she stabs Ziev in the leg with a knife she has in her lunch bag. He was refusing to play with her and before she knew it she was clutching the knife in her fist and plunging it into him.

She hears the tearing of his jeans as the tip of the knife slices through. She feels the resistance of his skin and muscles, but she forces the knife in with the depth of her anger and despair. The muscles give way and the knife sinks in, and Oksana feels peace. The anger is gone, the despair is gone, and she feels peace as she watches him bleed through watery eyes. She doesn’t even hear the screaming.

***

Oksana is still seven years old when they put her in a special school. She only gets to go home on the weekends. She doesn’t like leaving her little brother alone with Mama. She tells the new teachers but nobody listens.

She does not like the new teachers at all. When she gets angry, they hold her down. They are too strong and she cannot get away, and if she gets lucky enough, they give her a shot anyway, so she has stopped trying.

When they hold her down, she thinks of Dad or Pyotr. She thinks of the last book she read, The Magic Treehouse, Pirates Past Noon. She imagines being a pirate and having her own ship. Her mind slips away so her body does not struggle, and she just lets them hold her. She is not there to feel it anymore, anyway. She is too busy having an adventure on the open sea.

***

When Oksana is eight, she graduates out of that special school and gets put in another one. She gets to live at home again and she likes being with Dad and Pyotr, even though Pyotr is a crybaby and very annoying. He is only five years old so she forgives him. She can’t remember if she was a crybaby when she was five years old, but she doesn’t think she was. She doesn’t think Mama would have let her be.

Now that she is back home, Mama tries to be better. She even gets a hug, but it is ruined because afterward she does not stop wondering when Mama will hate her again. She is eight now and she is old enough to know what hate is. She knows she is very smart for her age, and this time when she asks for books to read, she asks Dad, and he buys them for her.

She reads Bridge to Terabithia and she does not like it because everyone is too emotional. Then she reads Lord of the Flies, and she likes that one a lot. She spends a lot of time fantasizing about killing Mama and smashing her head like they smash Piggy’s glasses.

The first time she ever touches herself, she is thinking of smashing Mama’s head.

She wonders if Mama can read her mind, because the day after that... Mama carries her out of the house and drives her somewhere she has never been before, and leaves her.

She yells. She screams. She tries to run after Mama, even though she knows she will not reach the car before it is gone, and she drops to her knees in the dirt and cries.

She won’t miss Mama, but how could Dad let this happen? Does he know about it? Does he not want her anymore, either? Do they know she thinks about killing Mama? She is eight years old and she knows what hate is, but she wishes she didn’t.

She cries in the dirt until a lady comes to sit next to her. “Are you hungry, child?”

She thinks it might be the first time she is ever asked if she is hungry. And she has to think about it. Is she hungry? Her brain does not want to tell her. When did she last eat? She cannot remember. “What do you have?” is her eventual answer.

“Grilled cheese sandwiches,” the lady says. “Do you like those?”

Oksana does like those. She nods.

“Will you come inside?”

She nods again. She flinches when the lady takes her hand to help her up, but the lady doesn’t notice, or maybe she pretends not to. Oksana is on her feet and following the lady inside, a hand warm in hers. “When is Mama coming back for me?”

The lady leads her to the kitchen and shows her where to sit. The room is empty and she wonders if the other children have already eaten or will be coming in soon.

“I don’t know, child,” the lady says. She puts a plate in front of Oksana with a nice-looking sandwich on it. “But you will be safe here until she does.”

Oksana takes a bite of the sandwich and doesn’t notice that she talks with her mouth full. “Are you lying to me because I am small, or because you feel bad?”

The lady doesn’t get angry, she just sits across from Oksana, and if Oksana had to choose a feeling on the lady’s face, she thinks she would choose sad. “Neither,” she says. “You will be safe here, that is the truth. And your mother did not tell me when she plans to return.”

“I will be safe here, but the other children will not,” Oksana says, swallowing the bite of sandwich and taking another. “You should bring me home.”

“Why won’t the other children be safe?”

Oksana chews with her mouth open and speaks. “Because I will hurt them.”

“I see. And why would you do that?”

Oksana looks at her. She thinks the lady is not taking her seriously. “You do not believe me, but you will.” She swallows and takes another bite of her sandwich. “This is very good. Better than the ones I make.”

“How old are you?”

“I am eight. How old are you?”

The lady laughs. It is a nice sound.

“Thirty-four. What’s your name?”

Oksana swallows. She takes another bite. The sandwich is almost gone. “Mama did not tell you my name?”

“She did, but she could be lying,” the lady says, and Oksana feels like they are in on a joke together.

She actually feels her mouth move into a smile as she looks up. “My name is Oksana.”

“Oksana,” the lady repeats. “That is very pretty.”

“What is your name?” She finishes her sandwich and wants another. She doesn’t ask for one.

“Katerina, or Ms. Voslova. Would you like another sandwich?”

“No,” Oksana says. She does not want Katerina to think she is difficult and stop liking her.

Katerina looks at her and Oksana looks back. “It is actually a rule that you eat two sandwiches when you first get here,” Katerina says.

Oksana puts her hands underneath her and sits on them because she does not want to look too excited. “I will try.”

***

Oksana likes Katerina very much, and she even likes some of the other children and the other ladies that take care of them, but she wants to go home. She wants to be with Dad and Pyotr. She wants to see Ziev and tell him she is sorry even though she is not, so he will like her again.

She does not like the dolls they give her to play with so she takes some cars when the boys are not looking. They catch her playing with their cars later and they are angry. They yell at her and try to take back the cars, and she hurts them.

“You blinded him in one eye,” Katerina says.

Oksana shrugs. Is she supposed to feel bad? “He tried to take something from me,” she says.

“Yes,” Katerina says, holding up the car. “This car, which you took from him first.”

Suddenly Oksana feels the color red everywhere on her body and she jumps out of her chair. “I told you I would hurt them and you did not believe me!” she shouts, and she cannot remember ever shouting at a grown-up before, but she shouts, because Katerina is upset with her and she does not like it. “It is not my fault, it is your fault!” She shouts because she wants someone to love her and no one does. “Send me home!”

Katerina looks surprised, but then she hides her feelings from Oksana and Oksana knows it is because she is a child. “I can’t send you home,” Katerina says. “It’s not up to me.”

Oksana feels a sting in her eyes and she fights it, she fights it so hard because she will not cry in front of anyone ever again, even if she is left in the dirt watching Mama drive away and leave her somewhere, she will not cry until she is alone. “I don’t like dolls,” she says, sitting back down. “I want to play with cars.”

Katerina blinks and Oksana narrows her eyes.

“Do not tell me no.”

“I was just surprised at the change of subject,” Katerina says. Oksana can see the judgment on her face even though she knows Katerina is trying to hide it. “I’ll get you some cars tomorrow. Today I’m afraid you won’t be allowed any more toys and you’ll have to stay in your room until supper.”

Oksana stands up and Katerina flinches. Oksana thinks she expects a fight. She will not get one. Oksana is used to being alone. “I do not want to play anymore today anyway,” she says, and she walks away.

She walks and walks and walks, up the stairs and down the hall until she reaches her room, and she sits on her bed and sulks just in case any grown-ups walk by. She has a sulk on her face while she thinks. She tries to remember where she saw matches. She knows where to find paper. She might not even need paper if she can catch one of the bed sheets on fire. She will burn down this boring place and they will have to send her home.

***

She stares at the flames, licking high into the sky, and thinks they are beautiful. She can feel heat on her face from being too close to the fire. She did not get burned but her face was very hot. She stands outside with the other children watching the fire brigade rush around with hoses trying to smother her masterpiece.

She sees Katerina talking to the Big Boss Lady and then the Big Boss Lady is coming toward her with an angry face.

“What did you do, you little monster?” the Big Boss Lady yells in her face, and Oksana tries to back away because she does not like the way the Big Boss Lady smells.

She folds her arms over her chest and glares. “I want to go home now.”

The Big Boss Lady grabs her. “You can’t go home, Oksana, because your family are all dead!” The Big Boss Lady is yelling again. “You are going to juvenile detention, you evil little thing!”

Oksana doesn’t hear anything after the word “dead”. She falls to the dirt and pulls her knees up to her chest. She stares at her knees. Stares. Stares. Stares. Stares. Stares.

“...listening to me?!”

She hears the end of another yell but she cannot do anything. She is frozen. Her family are all dead. Dad and Pyotr are dead. It cannot be true. But she is still not going to cry. Never again.


	2. Almost Nine to Fourteen

Oksana is almost nine when she gets to juvenile detention. She refused to speak during her trial so she is told she will stay here for five years.

It is not a nice place, but it is not as bad as most people’s faces tell you when they talk about jail.

“You’ll be sharing a room with two other girls,” one of the officers tells her as they stop at a locked door.

“Room?” Oksana speaks for the first time since the incident. “Not cell?”

“We don’t like to think of this as a jail,” the officer says. “We like to think of this as a place for you to work on your issues and get better so you can go back to your families.”

Oksana looks at him. She doesn’t feel any type of way. “My family are all dead,” she says, trying to open the door. “Let me in.”

She thinks the officer doesn’t know what to say to her, because he just unlocks the door and lets her in, and she hears it close and lock behind her.

There are four beds – two sets of bunk beds, and one set is empty, the other full. She will have her choice of the top or bottom bunk. Maybe she will use both.

The two girls both sit up when the door shuts. One of them is blonde like her and the other one has black hair. She imagines them lying next to each other with their hair fanned out like black and white. She likes opposites. She thinks she would like a girl with black hair to share her bunk beds.

“What are you in for?” The blonde one speaks.

“I burnt down the top floor of my orphanage.”

“Did anybody die?”

“I do not think so.” She pauses, considering. “I think I wish someone did.” The Big Boss Lady. Oksana would have liked it if she had died.

The black-haired girl looks at her. “Why were you in the orphanage?”

Oksana shrugs. “I do not know.”

“You don’t know?” The blonde girl is speaking again. “How can you not know?”

Oksana shrugs again. “Mama did not tell me.”

The black-haired girl looks surprised. “Your mama took you there?” Oksana thinks she hears pity.

“It is not a good idea to feel bad for me,” she says.

“Okay,” the blonde girl says. “Anyways... I’m Janna and this is Darya.”

“I am Oksana.”

Darya sits up straighter. “Oksana. I like that name.”

Oksana considers. “I do not have any feelings about it. It is just a name.”

“Names are very important,” Darya says.

“I think they are not,” Oksana says.

“Names tell you a lot about people,” Darya insists.

“Fine, if you will stop talking about it.” Oksana climbs up to the top bed. She will use this one first.

***

Darya gets into her bed in the middle of the night and tries to kiss her.

Oksana is glad she is awake to put a stop to it. “You are very pretty but I do not want to kiss anyone,” she says.

“Can I just sleep next to you then?”

“Fine, but do not try to kiss me.”

“You’re not allowed to do that,” Janna says, and Oksana wonders why all three of them are awake in the middle of the night.

Oksana likes the feeling of someone wanting to be close to her. She lifts up her head and can barely see Janna across the room because the moonlight does not come through the window very well. “If you tell, I will hurt you.”

Janna snorts and rolls over toward the wall. “I’m not gonna tell, I’m just telling _you_.”

Oksana is satisfied with this and lays her head back down. She will let Darya snuggle with her as long as there is no kissing.

***

Oksana is ready to make Darya hurry back to her own bed when she hears footsteps approaching in the hall, but when she opens her eyes, Darya isn’t there. She sits up and sees the other girl back in her own bed, and she thinks Darya must know the routine well enough to know when to go back to her own bed. “How long have you been here?” she asks.

“Almost six months,” Darya says.

“How old are you?”

“Twelve.”

“I am only eight. You should not be trying to kiss eight-year-olds.”

“Will you still let me sleep with you?”

Oksana thinks about it. It isn’t a hard decision because she likes being wanted. “Yes. If you are nice to me.”

Darya nods as a key sounds in the lock, and then the door opens and they have to start their day.

***

Darya sneaks her an extra piece of toast at breakfast and Oksana likes this. Maybe tomorrow she will get some extra juice, too. Having an older girl like her could be very good for her. She thinks that Darya probably knows things about this place that she can use to her advantage.

She spends most of the day in a classroom with the other children her age, but it is too easy for her and they move her to fourth grade.

She studies and reads a lot, and they let her have a cupcake on her birthday. They know why she is here and she does not get a candle. This is okay, though, because the cupcake is delicious and she knows that Darya will have a present for her tonight.

She is not disappointed. She thinks that she must look very surprised when she sees the gift Darya has for her. It is the most beautiful blouse she has ever seen, and it is fancy and it is soft and she rubs the material over her cheek and she feels a tightness low in her belly. This blouse is expensive.

She presses the blouse to her whole face and takes a deep breath. It smells like... money. Oksana does not know what money actually smells like, but she knows that is how this blouse smells. She just knows.

“How did you get this?” she asks.

“Do you like it?” Darya asks.

“Yes,” Oksana says, unable to take her eyes from the gift. “I love it.”

“My parents have a lot of money and they feel guilty that I’m in here. If it doesn’t fit I can have them send it back for a different size.”

Oksana’s hands tighten around the blouse and she moves it subtly out of reach. “No. It is perfect.”

“You haven’t tried it on yet...”

“I know it is perfect,” she insists, her voice rising a little.

Darya seems to understand and stops talking about it. “Can I watch you put it on?”

“No,” Oksana snaps.

“I can get you the matching pants...”

Oksana’s nostrils flare at the thought of it. She wants the matching pants. “Fine. But do not try to touch me.”

She turns away slightly because she is not going to give in the _whole_ way, and she strips off her boring tank top, tossing it aside, and pulls the blouse over her head, shuddering as the material covers her skin. She feels... she feels... powerful. She feels powerful and she feels pretty, and she feels rich.

***

By the time Oksana is ten, she has gotten Darya to buy her thousands of dollars’ worth of designer clothes. Some of the staff don’t think she should be allowed to keep them, but Oksana is smart, and she is charming, and she gets her way. Nobody touches a single article of her clothing, and she lets Darya kiss her on the cheek in exchange for weekly dry cleaning.

The first incident Oksana has in juvenile detention is when the staff try to give her a bunkmate. “No,” she says. “I need that space for my clothes.”

“I don’t know who you think you are,” the officer says, and she doesn’t recognize him so he must be new. “Move your clothes, kid, or I’ll move them for you.”

Her teeth are tearing a chunk out of his neck before he can breathe. His blood tastes like metal and his skin tastes like salt. He is screaming and trying to fight her off, but she is small and quick and has a very strong bite.

It takes three staff to pull her off. They force her to the hard linoleum floor and put their weight on her to keep her there.

Blood is all over her mouth and chin and she feels skin between her top front teeth. She worries it out with her tongue and spits.

When she has been calm for what feels like forever, they lift her up and take her to the infirmary, and the doctor prods her with a syringe; takes her blood to test for diseases. She can tell that blood really freaks these people out, so she spits on the doctor. It is not as satisfying as if her mouth had still been full, but there is a pink tinge to the saliva on his cheek and it is good enough.

His reaction is wonderful. He shrieks like a little girl and rushes to the sink to wash his face, and Oksana can’t help it, she lets out a little laugh. It’s funny, seeing a grown-up man panic because of a little diluted blood on his face. After all, she was not panicking and she’d had a mouthful of it direct from the source. She can still taste it, of course, and she is thinking about that when the doctor turns back around.

“Did you taste it?” she asks. “It tastes like metal.”

He does not know what to say to her; that much is obvious. She thinks he is probably not paid enough to deal with kids like her.

“You should ask for a raise,” she says. “Hazard pay.”

He looks at her for a minute and then goes to get the guards. “She’s done,” Oksana hears him say.

The guards come to get her, and now they take her to the bathroom and make her brush and floss her teeth and wash her face and hands.

When she is clean enough to their liking, they take her to a room with soft carpet and a mattress on the floor and nothing else. “This is your idea of solitary?” she asks, snorting as she walks around the inside perimeter, dragging one fingertip along the walls. “Soft carpet and a nice mattress? Why would I ever want to leave here?”

Neither of them answer her. They just leave and lock her in.

Oksana sighs and flops down on the mattress, staring at the ceiling. This is going to be very boring.

***

Oksana hates solitary even though there is soft carpet and a mattress, because she is alone and she does not have Darya snuggled up to her at night, and she does not have her favorite teddy bear or her own pillow and blankets.

She is alone, alone, alone, and when she is alone, she thinks too much.

She thinks about Dad and Pyotr. She wonders if it was Mama’s fault. She thinks about Ziev, and how they used to have fun. She thinks about her teachers from kindergarten and first grade, and how they were always nice to her and told her nice things about herself.

She misses Darya telling her how pretty she is and how good she looks in the fancy clothes. She misses being the object of someone’s affection and obsession. She thinks she needs someone else’s obsession to make her feel good, because when Darya is trying to kiss her, she does not have to think about her family. When Darya is demanding her attention, she feels powerful and important, and sometimes she says no just to feel even more powerful and make Darya beg her. She knows she is wanted in those moments.

It has only been two days, but she misses this.

***

When she is allowed to return to her room, Oksana notices immediately that her clothes are missing and there is a stranger in the bottom bed of her bunk.

She feels red. Red, everywhere. In her mouth, on her skin, in her eyes, in her stomach. “What did you do with my clothes?” she screams.

The stranger looks at her with big, scared eyes. “Nothing! I didn’t touch anything, I swear!”

“The guards took them,” Janna says. “We tried to stop them.”

Oksana can barely breathe through the rage. Her voice is thunderous as she storms out of her room and she lets loose on the first uniform she sees, screaming and punching and kicking and demanding they return her things right now.

She’s on the floor again, grown-up weight holding her down.

“Little bitches that tear out people’s throats with their teeth do not get to have nice things,” one of the guards says, and Oksana thinks he sounds like a snake. Hiss, hiss.

“Xander,” one of the other guards says. Then to Oksana he says, “you can earn them back with good behavior, Oksana.”

She recognizes his voice. He is Charlie and he is nicer than everyone else. “They are mine,” she insists. “You cannot take my things.”

“You’re in juvenile detention, not a luxury hotel, sweetheart,” Xander says with a sneer in his voice that Oksana would like to snuff out.

This idiot man-child does not realize the mistake he is making, because Oksana holds grudges, and Oksana can be patient, and when Xander does not expect it, Oksana will _hurt_ him.

***

Every day she goes without assaulting anyone, she earns back a piece of her clothing. She does not like this. She wants all of her clothing back right now. She thinks earning something that already belongs to you is ridiculous. But she does not have a choice. So she behaves.

***

For Oksana’s twelfth birthday, Darya gets her jewelry. Big, shiny gold hoop earrings and a gold necklace with a diamond pendant. She does not have to ask if the diamond is real because Darya tells her it is, and it sparkles so beautifully that Oksana just knows.

She lets Darya put it on her and then she puts on the earrings and admires herself in the bathroom mirror, a tingling in her belly at how amazing she looks. She decides never to take any of it off.

That night when Darya crawls into bed with her, Oksana turns over. She lets Darya kiss her for the first time, and she doesn’t know what she’s expecting, but it is soft and warm and nice.

She only lets it happen for a few seconds, and then she is facing the wall again, fingers stroking the diamond at her throat as she falls asleep.

***

Oksana is thirteen when Darya gets released from juvenile detention, and she thinks it will be fine. She is fine all day and all evening. She does not even think about Darya while she studies and reads and does her jobs around the facility.

When there is no one pressed up against her back at night, she is suddenly not fine. She hears herself make an anguished sound and claps a hand over her mouth to contain it. There are tears in her eyes but she does not want to cry. She does not love Darya, but she loves being wanted. Now she is just empty. There is an ache she does not appreciate or understand that is blooming inside of her and she does not think she can take it.

She is not friends with Janna, not really, but it will not matter. “Janna, I need you to come up here,” she says.

“What for?” comes the sleepy response.

“You are going to sleep next to me because I am used to having someone there, and if it is not Darya then it will be you.”

“What about Anjila?” Janna asks, speaking of the girl that occupies the bottom bed of Oksana’s bunk.

“No,” Oksana says. “I am getting impatient.”

She hears grumbling and the rustling of bedcovers, and then footsteps, and then she feels her mattress dip behind her as Janna settles. “I’m not doing this every night.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You will do it as long as I want you to do it,” Oksana says, and she does not think Janna will argue. Most of the other girls do not argue with her anymore.

***

Oksana is released from juvenile detention when she is fourteen. They take her to a group home and she thinks it is not very different from detention, except that she will be able to sneak out. But really, where will she go? She does not know anyone in the area and she does not have money or a car.

The clothes from Darya do not fit anymore and Oksana misses them more than she misses anything else. She will just have to find a way to make some money.

The people who run the group home want her to play games after dinner. It is only her second night here and she tells them no and goes to her room. She will start school tomorrow. High school. This should be very interesting.


	3. Fourteen to Eighteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW for underage sex even though I do not describe it.

It turns out that Oksana is very good at stealing. She skips the first day of classes because she doesn’t want to go to school in clothes she hasn’t chosen for herself. She is anxious to start school, but she wants to start this one off right. She wants to look as fabulous as she knows she is.

She uses her lunch money from the group home staff to catch a bus to the mall, uses the sample cosmetics to make up her face, then goes in search of clothing.

A little flirting is all it takes to get more than you’re allowed into a dressing room, and with so many things it was easy to walk out with one or two less.

She spies a well-dressed gentleman on her way out of the second store and bumps into him, apologizing profusely as her hand slips into his pocket to relieve him of his wallet.

She ducks into the ladies’ restroom at the food court and throws away everything but the cash. It’s a nice pile and she feels a smile pull at her mouth.

It’s a good idea to leave the mall just in case the man remembers her face, and now that she has money, she takes a taxi to a smaller area with nicer shops and buys herself a couple of whole new ensembles.

***

“You missed the first day of school,” one of the staff whose name she doesn’t remember says when she arrives home in the evening.

“I needed some clothes,” she tells him, and he is lucky she even answers because she has no need to explain herself to him. He is a blip on the radar of her life, insignificant in time and space, and what is he going to do, confiscate her purchases? Over his dead body.

“How did you get money for new clothes?”

He is really lucky she is in a good mood. “Had sex with a few men,” she says, and at the look on his face she bursts out laughing. “I am joking. You will just have to wonder where I got money.”

And she goes to her room.

He does not follow her.

***

In the morning, Oksana dresses to kill. She pulls her hair into a tight bun, accented with a few crystal-tipped hair pins, and then she gets dressed. She decides on plaid trousers and a long-sleeved sweater blouse the color of the sky, and they look smashing together. She puts heavy boots on her feet and brushes her teeth and puts on a little makeup.

“Aren’t you going to have breakfast?” one of the staff asks as she walks by the kitchen.

She ignores the question because she has better things to do and goes outside to wait for the school bus.

***

Everything is good until French class, and then everything is _amazing_. She sits in the front row and stares at the French teacher’s dark, wavy hair, transfixed, thinking she will stare at it for the entire class period, and then the teacher speaks.

Oksana thinks she is in love with the teacher’s voice. Soft and melodic, with perfect rhythm to lull her into a meditative state if this woman so chooses.

They go around the room and say their names, and she makes eye contact with the teacher when she says “Oksana,” and something passes between them, she is sure of it. She does not know what it is, but it is more powerful than anything she ever felt with Darya and she becomes instantly excited.

Who is this beautiful creature and where did she come from? Oksana is staring at her, losing track of everything else, until she is hit in the face with a little wad of paper.

She startles, stares at her desk where the offending paper sits, and opens it. Stupid, immature handwriting is staring back at her, yelling “HOT FOR TEACHER.”

She balls up the note and puts it in her mouth, then turns her head to locate the author. It is easy because there is a boy staring at her with a smirk on his ugly face. She is out of her desk in a flash, fist connecting with his jaw once, twice, and she is ready to hit him a third time when she hears a displeased lilt from behind her.

“Oksana.”

That is it. That is all the teacher says. Just her name. And it is soft, and intimate, and perfect even though it is unhappy. She screws up her face as she tries to decide what to do. Ultimately she cannot disappoint this teacher any more than she already has, so she relaxes her fist and drops her hold on the boy’s sweater and turns around, expecting a slap or a restraint or to be kicked out of the school.

Mrs. Leonova’s face is not saying any of those things and Oksana is confused. She stares, feeling the throb in her knuckles like a distant bass drum, but the snare drum right in front of her is louder; overwhelming, whatever is happening between her and Mrs. Leonova right now.

“Please sit down,” Mrs. Leonova says quietly. “And I will like to speak with you after class.”

Oksana is stunned and can do nothing but comply, returning to her desk. When she sits, she feels strange, because this is not how people react to her outbursts.

She does not pay attention and she cannot learn anything because she is consumed with the situation at hand, dreading and also looking forward to speaking after class with the teacher.

***

When the other students have cleared out, Mrs. Leonova comes to stand in front of her desk. “You looked surprised when I asked you to sit down,” she says.

“I thought you would slap me,” Oksana answers truthfully. “Or that you might restrain or expel me.”

“Well,” Mrs. Leonova begins, “it is theoretically possible for you to be expelled, but I would never restrain you and I would certainly never slap you.”

Oksana’s pulse is racing. Roaring in her ears. “You will be the first.”

She does not like the look of pity on Mrs. Leonova’s face.

“Do not do that,” she says, frowning. “I am fine.”

“I’m sure you are,” Mrs. Leonova says with a nod. “It still makes me regretful to hear how you have been mistreated.”

“If it happens enough times and with enough people, can it really be considered mistreatment?” Oksana asks. She is halfway being rude and halfway being honest. She expects Mrs. Leonova not to give her an answer. It isn’t a real question anyway.

“Yes,” the teacher says, and does not elaborate.

Oksana stares at her, feeling something churn in her belly. “I will try to behave in your class,” she says, because she does not think she can continue this conversation. It is too intimate. She needs air. “May I go, please?”

Mrs. Leonova nods and moves back a few feet, probably so Oksana can feel safe when she leaves. But she does not feel safe at all. She feels shaken. She feels... she does not know. She does not know why this teacher’s kindness is making her nauseated.

***

Over the next few weeks, Oksana becomes accustomed to the kindness, and she behaves in Mrs. Leonova’s class.

She laughs one day at lunch when she overhears two of her other teachers asking Mrs. Leonova how she manages it. Then she strains to hear Mrs. Leonova’s answer, nerves jittering around inside her.

“Maybe you are not as good at your jobs as you think,” Mrs. Leonova says, and the answer makes Oksana have to cover her mouth to keep her laugh quiet.

She turns away quickly to avoid getting caught listening, but the jittering nerves inside have turned into something _else_.

***

Oksana swipes a few more wallets over the weekend, and armed with handfuls of cash, she wants to buy Mrs. Leonova a gift.

What will her teacher like? What will she never want to get rid of and will always make her think of Oksana?

Not jewelry, because you can only wear certain jewelry with certain things. Unless you want to look stupid. And Oksana does not think she would be very happy if she were to find out that Mrs. Leonova wore jewelry with the wrong clothes and did not mind looking stupid.

No. No jewelry.

Oksana does not know her teacher’s exact size so she cannot buy her something nice to wear.

No clothes. No jewelry. What else is there?

Inspiration strikes and she buys a nice camera. Mrs. Leonova likes the ocean, so she will take the perfect picture of the ocean and have it framed. Maybe a five by seven size so Mrs. Leonova can keep it on her desk at school.

This idea is even better than buying a gift because Mrs. Leonova will know that Oksana is thinking about what she likes. She will know that Oksana always pays attention when she speaks. She will know that she is very special.

Mrs. Leonova is the first adult that has not abandoned Oksana at the first sign of trouble.

***

Mrs. Leonova loves the photo and keeps it on her desk, and every time Oksana sees it she feels something.

***

Soon, school is not enough. Seeing Mrs. Leonova at school is not enough. Oksana is not struggling with her lessons, but maybe if she pretends to struggle, Mrs. Leonova will give her extra help after school.

“Is something wrong, Oksana?” Mrs. Leonova asks, setting her test down on her desk.

Oksana glances at it and sees the grade – F. She shrugs as if she is embarrassed.

“Is everything fine at home?” Mrs. Leonova asks then.

She could pretend things are not fine at home, but for now she will only pretend that French is getting harder. “The material is more difficult,” she says.

“But you have gone from As to an F nearly overnight,” Mrs. Leonova says, and if there was not such obvious concern in her voice when she says it, Oksana would probably get angry. “Are you sure everything is okay? You can tell me if something’s wrong...”

Oksana feels a warm glow in her belly and offers the teacher a smile. “It is just harder,” she insists. “Do you offer extra lessons after school?”

“Not usually,” Mrs. Leonova says, and it is all the opening Oksana needs.

“Not usually, but you will make an exception and help me?” she asks, placing a very hopeful look on her face. “I really love learning French and I would really like to be able to speak it fluently one day.”

Mrs. Leonova looks conflicted. “I suppose I could stay an hour after school on Wednesdays to work with you,” she finally says.

It is not perfect, but it is something. It is more than she is getting now, and so it is okay. “Thank you,” she says, feeling very happy all the way up to her eyes. “I will work very hard, I promise.”

“You are a very good student, Oksana. Very bright. I know you will work hard.”

Suddenly, every other teacher that has ever told her she is bright does not matter anymore, because to hear it from Mrs. Leonova makes her chest explode with pride.

***

The first Wednesday she is going to get tutoring from Mrs. Leonova, Oksana makes sure she goes to school in her favorite clothes. It is a suit that she has had tailored to display her body to the best of its ability, and the design is very trendy, very geometric. She wears boots with two-inch heels and she braids her hair. She puts a touch of extra makeup on but not so much as to be obvious, and she wears the gold hoop earrings and diamond pendant from Darya. She thinks she looks amazing.

On the way to school something occurs to her and her eyes widen. She needs to _smell_ good. She needs to smell so good that Mrs. Leonova will not even realize she is moving closer to Oksana to smell her better. She needs a very unique perfume. A very unique French perfume. Smell is a very powerful sense and people remember smells longer than they remember other things, even if their conscious brains do not realize this. Oksana knows because when she smells certain foods she is reminded of home, which she has not otherwise thought of in awhile.

She sneaks off campus during lunch and takes a taxi to an upscale perfumerie, and she does not want to smell too many because then they will blend together and she will not know which she is choosing. She must be careful in her selection before she even samples the scents.

“I would like to see all of your French perfumes, please,” she says when she is greeted by the saleswoman.

“What are you, thirteen? I don’t think you can afford anything here,” the woman says, looking her over.

Oksana smirks and leans one elbow on the counter, tilting her head and letting one side of her mouth curl in a menacing way as she says, “do you have any idea how much this suit cost me?” And she takes a handful of bills from her pocket, laying them on the counter and watching with satisfaction as the saleswoman’s eyes go wide. “Your French perfumes. Now, please.”

“I apologize,” the woman says, but Oksana does not care about that.

“Just show me the perfumes,” she says, one foot tapping with a sense of urgency.

“Right away.”

***

She chooses a scent called La Villanelle. It is perfect. It is memorable. It is mouth watering. She thinks Mrs. Leonova will not be able to forget the way she smells.

She waits until just before the last bell to dab on a subtle amount of the perfume and makes her way to Mrs. Leonova’s classroom. She frowns because there are still students in there and it is her turn to be with Mrs. Leonova, and they need to _leave_. She opens her mouth to say something to them but catches Mrs. Leonova’s eye and her teacher gives her a smile and a wave to come in.

So she shuts her mouth and goes into the classroom, glaring a little at each of the unbearably slow stragglers until she reaches her desk, and then she cannot keep herself quiet. “You are in my desk. It is time for you to go. Hurry up.”

Most of the students here have heard of her in one way or another and do not do stupid things like throw notes at her face or argue when she wants them to do something.

“Oksana.”

The tone is disapproving, almost _scolding_ , and Oksana feels her face heat up; thinks she is probably blushing as she turns around. She knows she looks very sheepish. “Yes, Mrs. Leonova?” Oh, how she wishes she could call her teacher Anna. She will have to work on that.

“Come over here,” Mrs. Leonova says, inclining her head to cement the invitation.

Oksana walks over, one slow step in front of the next, and stands beside her teacher’s desk. “Yes?” she says again.

“You know I do not appreciate bullying in my classroom,” Mrs. Leonova says quietly, and Oksana realizes the teacher is being _nice_ ; is making sure no one else can hear her getting scolded.

She cannot bring herself to apologize, but she nods her understanding. “I will try not to,” she says instead of “sorry”.

“Thank you.” And Mrs. Leonova is smiling at her again, and she feels ten kilos lighter.

Finally a few minutes later they are alone and sitting at the round work table in the back of the classroom.

“Are you wearing perfume?” Mrs. Leonova asks, and it is all Oksana can do not to jump up and down.

“Hm?” she asks, taking an obvious smell of herself as if she has no idea. “It might be my shampoo...”

Mrs. Leonova nods, and Oksana is giddy. This teacher will not be able to forget the way she smells.

They go over the exercises from the test, and as Oksana pretends to re-learn many things, she moves her chair closer under the guise of pointing something out, and Mrs. Leonova does not move her chair away, and Oksana is almost close enough to brush their arms together, but she doesn’t. Not yet. Not on the first day. She knows she must be patient and be slow. She does not want to spook Mrs. Leonova, of course.

When they say goodbye, Mrs. Leonova touches her shoulder to guide her out the door, and Oksana feels like she is floating for the entire bus ride home.

***

“You look happy,” says Fritz at dinner, the boy that lives in the room next to hers.

“I am happy,” Oksana says. “I am getting French lessons after school.”

“How did you get French lessons after school? Mrs. Leonova doesn’t do tutoring, you have to pay for that, don’t you?” Fritz asks.

Oksana shrugs, trying not to swallow her food whole. She forces herself to remember to chew. “She is helping me. Maybe it is because I am a good student who is very interested in learning.”

“Or she wants a piece of you,” Fritz whispers so the staff cannot overhear.

Oksana grins, smug, and whispers back, “you are such a boy. Not everything is about sex.” Not that she will mind if Mrs. Leonova is interested in her that way. She does not think it is true, but she knows there is more to her feelings for Mrs. Leonova than her teenage mind can fully understand. Either way, she does not care. She just wants to be close.

***

When Oksana is fifteen, she begins to understand that her feelings for Mrs. Leonova are romantic. She knows she has to be careful, though, because it is not allowed for teachers and students to be romantically involved, and Mrs. Leonova can get in very much trouble. She does not want that.

Of course, she still has a lot of work to do before Mrs. Leonova will look at her that way. She is still getting extra lessons on Wednesdays, and she has been very good and very patient, and now it is time to ask for more. Just a little bit more, because she is playing the long game.

The perfect opportunity presents itself in the form of construction work. There is to be construction work after classes let out, and it is supposed to last for a month. When Mrs. Leonova calls her over to tell her they will have to cancel her tutoring sessions until construction is complete, Oksana makes herself cry.

“But I am doing so well, I do not want to fall behind,” she says, tears dripping down her cheeks. She is very impressed with herself at this ability, by the way. “Is there not somewhere else we could work?”

“I don’t have an office,” Mrs. Leonova says. “The only other place is my home.”

Oksana’s heart does flips. This is better than she had even been going for. “I do not mind,” she says, sniffling and wiping at her eyes.

“Oh, Oksana,” Mrs. Leonova says, and Oksana can hear the excuses about to start pouring out - how she has a husband and how it would not be appropriate, and every other stupid reason not to let Oksana come to her home, so she gets out in front of it.

“You will barely know I am there,” she promises. “I will study _so_ hard, Mrs. Leonova. Please.” She gives a hitching breath for effect. If Mrs. Leonova says no, she is really going to fall apart.

“Please don’t cry,” Mrs. Leonova says, reaching out to lay a hand on top of hers over the big oak teacher’s desk. “I’m sure we can work something out. I’ll speak to my husband this evening.”

“Thank you,” Oksana says, and her tears may not be real but her sigh of relief is. “Tell him his wife is a wonderful teacher.”

Mrs. Leonova chuckles. “Charmer,” she says with a wink, making Oksana’s stomach do flips now, too.

She wants to ask, “are you charmed?” but she doesn’t. She just offers a shy smile and a quiet giggle and walks away.

***

The home is very nice and Oksana feels comfortable right away. She takes her shoes and socks off and squishes her toes in the throw rug while Mrs. Leonova puts on some tea. Her bedroom at the group home is made of wood and she thinks she will buy herself a throw rug. “Your home is lovely,” she calls into the kitchen.

“Thank you,” Mrs. Leonova calls back. “Make yourself comfortable and I’ll be in shortly with some tea.”

Make herself comfortable. She can definitely do that. She shuffles around the living room, looking at the photographs and paintings. The paintings are very classy and she does not want to think about the photographs because they are all pictures of Mrs. Leonova with her husband. The curtains are kind of ugly but everything else is nice. She does think having a bunch of vases above your picture window is weird, though. Nothing is really matching, which is a faux pas in Oksana’s book, but she likes the cozy feeling of all the knick-knacks everywhere.

She especially likes the couch. It is soft and red and when she sits on it she can see into the kitchen where Mrs. Leonova is making their tea. “You do not have to make me tea,” she calls. “I do not want to be a burden.”

“Don’t be silly,” Mrs. Leonova says, coming back into the room just to stare at her and give her a dirty look.

Oksana thinks it is the best dirty look she has ever been given, and she laughs. “Okay. I will not be silly. I will drink your tea.”

Mrs. Leonova’s face softens into a smile and she nods before returning to the kitchen.

***

They are sitting at the table in the living room, drinking tea and going over verb conjugation when there is a key in the lock and Oksana feels herself stiffen, feels her hand tighten around her teacup, and she braces herself to be thrown out. It has not been an hour yet, she knows this, but who will want her around when their husband is home? She decides to leave before she can be tossed out. “I will go,” she says in a rush, trying to stand, but Mrs. Leonova takes her by the wrist and tugs her back down.

“It’s just Max,” she says. “He knows you will be here. I can’t believe you just tried to leave in the middle of a lesson.”

And the way Mrs. Leonova is looking at her, as if her teacher is trying not to laugh, it fills Oksana with a whole lot of feelings that she has no idea what to do with, so she laughs. “I would never do that,” she teases. “I am hungry to learn.”

The door opens and a nice-looking man in a suit comes in, closes the door behind him, and looks at them. “Hello, Love,” he says to Mrs. Leonova, and then to Oksana he says, “and you must be this Oksana I’ve heard so much about. I’m pleased to meet you.”

Oksana is shocked speechless when he says he has heard all about her. What does Mrs. Leonova say about her? The tone of voice she is hearing is telling her it is good things, but what if this man is just a very great actor? “Mr. Leonov,” she croaks out. “It is very nice to meet you.”

“Just call me Max,” he says, and he kisses the top of Mrs. Leonova’s head and disappears into the back of the house.

“Max,” she echoes, and looks at her teacher. “May I call you Anna, just when I am here? I will never ever do it at school and disrespect you, I promise... it is just weird to call your husband Max and to call you Mrs. Leonova...” She knows she is rambling, but she likes to plead her case before giving people a chance to answer. She finds she is usually more successful that way.

“That would be fine,” Anna says, and Oksana is suddenly floating again, just like that day on the bus last year after Anna had agreed to tutor her.

“Anna,” she says. “It is such a pretty name.”

“Don’t lose your focus,” Anna says, nodding toward the lesson on the table in front of them.

Oksana sets down her tea and starts writing.

***

Halfway through her tenth grade year, the class starts learning English, too, and Oksana convinces Anna to give her extra lessons in both languages, and she is allowed to be at Anna’s home three times a week and even sometimes stays for dinner. It is wonderful. She feels at home there and she is getting closer to Anna every day. They talk about things other than school, finally, and one evening Oksana brings up the group home.

“Did you know I live in a group home?” she asks casually.

Anna tilts her head, then shakes it a little. “I don’t think I knew that, no. I know you have had some trouble in the past, but the administration never told us anything about your situation. Only your difficulties with behavior.”

Oksana pouts and Anna laughs, patting her on the cheek. This type of touch is new and it takes an iron strength of will not to lean into Anna’s hand.

“I do not have difficulties with behavior.” Oksana continues to pout.

“Not in my class,” Anna agrees. “But didn’t I hear something about you spitting on the floor in your biology class last week?”

Oksana gasps. “What?”

Anna chuckles. “Don’t play innocent, Young Lady. I know your innocent-when-I’m-guilty face.”

“Okay I might have spit on the floor,” Oksana says, giving up the ruse. “But that is not so bad. I cleaned it up.”

Anna’s chuckle gets louder. “And what about giving Mr. Sternov the finger?”

“I was trying to point and the wrong finger came up?”

Anna laughs harder and pinches her face. “Naughty thing. Why don’t you do those things in my class? Not that I’m complaining, and please don’t take that as an invitation to misbehave...”

Oksana sucks in a breath and holds it when Anna pinches her. And the question makes her force the breath out to make room for another one. “Because you are kind to me,” she finally says, and it is mostly the truth. “You have been kind to me since my very first day when I did something awful in your class. I am sorry about that, by the way.” She can say it now; she’s grown a little over the past year. “I am not sorry for hitting him,” she quickly rushes to clarify, “I am just sorry for doing it in your class.”

Anna can’t seem to stop laughing and Oksana loves it. She loves being able to make this woman smile and laugh and pinch her cheeks. She cannot imagine what she would do without Anna in her life. So she never, ever thinks about that.

There is a key in the lock and Oksana shifts, trying not to let her disappointment show. She knows they will have to stop being silly with each other now even though they are not doing anything wrong. It will be different for the rest of the night. Max is nice, but he doesn’t like her the way Anna does, and she doesn’t like him the way she likes Anna. He is just... he is always interrupting. But she never complains because she knows Anna would not like that.

***

For her sixteenth birthday, Anna bakes her a cake. A cake! Just for the two of them, and she even gets to blow out candles, which she hasn’t been allowed to do since the orphanage, and she wonders if Anna does not know about that or just doesn’t care. Anna does not treat her like anyone else does, and she thinks maybe Anna knows about the orphanage and is telling Oksana how much she trusts her when she puts candles on the cake and lights them.

“This is so good. Thank you!” she says, and when she swallows the last bite of her second piece of cake she can’t help it, she gets up and throws her arms around Anna and squeezes.

She is surprised when Anna hugs her back without hesitation.

The hug lasts for a long time and the mood slowly shifts from giddy and excited to careful and tense. Oksana hears Anna breathe in, soft but deep, and knows that Anna is smelling her perfume. La Villanelle.

“Do you like the way I smell?” Oksana asks, and her voice is barely there.

Anna’s arms tighten for the briefest of seconds but Oksana feels it like the ceiling crashing down. “Yes,” Anna says after a pause so long that Oksana thinks she isn’t going to answer.

Oksana can feel her heart racing and those nervous butterflies are back in her stomach, and she senses something different about today, and they’re still hugging. “Do you want to know what the perfume is called?”

Anna squeezes her again. “You told me it wasn’t perfume.”

Oksana realizes she is caught in a lie and tries to think quickly. “I did not say that,” she reminds Anna. “I said it might be my shampoo...”

“A lie of omission is a lie,” Anna whispers, and a shiver runs down Oksana’s spine so fast it almost buckles her knees. And then Anna is gently turning her around by the shoulders. “Lying is naughty, Oksana,” she says, and gives Oksana a light little spank on the butt.

Oksana gasps and leans forward on the kitchen counter for support. It doesn’t hurt at all, and it’s not supposed to, she can tell, but her cheeks are flushed with embarrassment at the scolding and her stomach is twisting in knots because Anna has just _swatted_ her, on her _butt_ , and that is a very intimate thing to do to someone, and Oksana wonders if she is actually still breathing or not.

“Come on, you’ve got a lesson to do,” Anna says, and her voice is normal again, and Oksana thinks she has gathered herself away from this intimacy, and she wants to complain, but she doesn’t. She doesn’t. Not this time.

***

It has been two weeks and Oksana has not felt Anna’s touch again. She has been missing it, and touching herself a lot when she’s alone in bed, and she has to do something to give Anna a reason to touch her, she just doesn’t know what.

She gets a stroke of genius, and on her way to Anna’s after school she picks a fight with someone in the park, and she shows up at Anna’s door with an abrasion on her cheek and a bloody lip.

“Oksana!” Anna nearly yells, ushering her inside and slamming the door in her haste to tend to Oksana. “What happened?”

“Fight at the park,” Oksana says with a shrug. “It is nothing, really. I am fine.” She knows it is safe to say this because she knows that Anna will disregard it and fuss over her anyway.

“I don’t want you walking by that park,” Anna says, sitting Oksana down on the closed toilet and rooting around in her medicine cabinet.

“There is no other way to get here,” Oksana says with a frown. “It is usually fine.”

“Well what made it not fine today?” Anna asks, pouring peroxide onto a cotton ball and dabbing at the abrasion on her cheek.

It stings and she hisses softly, but she doesn’t flinch away from Anna’s attention, she is not an idiot. “Maybe someone was drunk, I do not know.”

Anna pauses with the cotton ball in the air and looks at her. “Are you lying?”

“No.”

Anna purses her lips and finishes cleaning Oksana’s cheek, then gets a new cotton ball and more peroxide for her lip.

That stings more but she still does not flinch away because she knows Anna does not believe her lie and she does not want Anna to stop touching her.

When she finishes cleaning the blood away, Anna puts a band-aid on her cheek. “I don’t think a band-aid will stay on your lip,” she says.

“It is fine,” Oksana says quickly; dismissively, and then she offers a smile to make up for it. “Thank you. For taking care of me.”

“Everyone needs a little care sometimes,” Anna says, and she blows a cool breath across Oksana’s injured lip and Oksana stops breathing for a second to memorize the feeling.

“My cheek hurts,” she lies, because it doesn’t hurt, not really. She has had worse injuries and this is nothing.

“Poor baby,” Anna says, pushing her lower lip out in sympathy, and Oksana’s eyes shoot toward it automatically. “What more would you like me to do about it?” she then asks, a dark eyebrow lifting, and Oksana really likes that expression on her.

“You did not blow on that one,” Oksana says, quiet, quiet, quiet.

“Because I was able to put a band-aid on that one,” Anna says. Oksana cannot figure out the expression on her face now. She looks like she is concentrating very hard, but at the same time completely distracted.

“Are you going to spank me again for lying?” Oksana asks, and she can’t believe she actually says it out loud.

“Should I?” Anna asks. “Are you lying about the park?”

Oksana feels supernaturally bold. “I picked a fight so I would have an injury for you to fix...”

Anna blinks at her, and for a split second Oksana thinks she’s ruined everything, but then... Anna laughs. “You—” She stops after one word and just laughs. When she stops laughing she looks very serious and intense, and Oksana wonders if the laughing was some kind of defense mechanism she’s read a little bit about online. Because she is getting the impression that Anna is not actually amused, at all. “Stand up,” Anna finally says.

Oksana feels tears welling in her eyes as she stands.

“Is this what you want?” Anna asks, running a hand over her face and cupping her injured cheek gently.

“Yes,” Oksana admits, though she is baffled at being able to speak, let alone speak clearly.

“And you think lying and deceiving me is a good way to get what you want?” She traces the cut on Oksana’s lip with one fingertip.

Oksana whimpers. “I did, but now I do not,” she says truthfully. “I am not experienced with normal people...”

“I am not normal,” Anna says, and Oksana hears a note of something unrecognizable in her voice. Something new; something a little bit dark. Something _Oksana_.

“You are very normal,” Oksana argues.

Anna leans forward and inhales the scent from her neck. “Normal people do not want to fuck their students, Oksana.”

The way she says Oksana is almost indecent, and in that moment Oksana knows that Anna has always seen through her, has always known her darkness, her fantasies, her intentions, and has let it happen. “You always knew,” she says, and the words come out on the edge of a single breath.

“Not always,” Anna says. “Only once you cried.”

Oksana’s mouth drops open. “The crying was the thing?” she asks, incredulous. “I thought my crying was very good.”

“It was very good,” Anna says, “it just didn’t fit you.”

Oksana just stares. She cannot believe the crying is what gave her away.

“You can have beautiful clothes, but if they don’t fit...” Anna says and shrugs.

“I do have beautiful clothes, and they all fit,” Oksana says, but she gets the point.

Anna laughs and kisses her. She forgets she even has a split lip.

They spend the entire evening and well into the night touching and kissing and discovering every little thing about each other’s bodies. Oksana does not tell Anna that she is her first, and Anna does not ask. It is two o’clock in the morning before Oksana realizes that Max has not come home, and she holds Anna suddenly at arm’s length. “Where is Max?”

Anna rewards her with a devious little grin. “Business trip.”

Oksana shoves her, but she is smiling. “So I am not the only one in this room who has practiced deception. You knew all along that you were going to seduce me tonight.”

“Seduce you?!” Anna shrieks, shoving her back. “You have been seducing me for two years.”

When Anna puts it that way, Oksana can hardly argue.

***

When Oksana is seventeen, she starts to resent Max for many different reasons. He is still nice, but he is not friendly, and he still interrupts her time with Anna every night. There have been a few more business trips, but mostly he always comes home, and Anna of course is not the same when he is there.

Oksana wants Anna to herself. They have a lot of sex, but she barely ever gets to spend the night, and she wants to be with Anna all of the time.

When she is not with Anna, she is thinking of Anna, or shopping for Anna and sending gifts to her house. She thinks Max is getting jealous. Does he know, deep down, that she is fucking his wife? She hopes he does. Anna should be hers. She is the one who goes out of her way to make Anna smile. She is the one who spoils Anna with expensive gifts. She is the one who takes care of Anna. All Max does is work. She wishes he would go to work and never come back.

***

Oksana puts up with sharing for a year. A year. Now she is eighteen and she can leave the group home and get her own apartment, but she does not want this. She wants to live with Anna. But when she tells this to her lover, they argue.

“Why don’t you love me?”

“I do love you, Oksana. But I also love him.”

“You only love him because he has a penis.”

Anna laughs, and Oksana doesn’t like it even though she knows Anna is not laughing to be mean. “You might be right.”

***

The next day is almost the best day of her life.

Oksana sneaks into Anna’s apartment and waits for Max. She knows Anna will be home late because she knows her lover’s schedule. She has decided that Anna needs her to fix this problem, and then they can be together, just the two of them. Anna will not say it, but Oksana knows she does not really love Max. How could she, when her fingers and tongue tell such convincing stories on Oksana’s body? Anna is just trying to be tough, Oksana knows. But it is okay. She can fix this. She will surprise Anna with a way out of her boring, unfulfilling marriage.

First she takes away the one part of Max that Anna lets inside her, and she stares at the blood while she lets him bleed. She doesn’t hear the pleading and begging because her mind is somewhere else – already her mind is with Anna, celebrating. She has blown up balloons and decorated the house with them, and she had a giant cake delivered, because she and Anna both love cake. She remembers this from her sixteenth birthday. Now Anna will be able to bake for her all of the time, and she will always tell Anna how good things taste and how happy she is to have them being made for her. She does not think Max makes Anna feel good about her baking, because he never even ate with them any of the times she had stayed over for dinner, and Anna never put leftovers in the refrigerator for him.

She is excited when Anna comes home, and she leads her lover to the bedroom to show her the good news. Only Anna does not look happy and Oksana starts to worry. Anna starts screaming at her and Oksana feels herself breaking apart. Anna calls her evil and crazy and Oksana’s heart shatters. Why is this Anna’s reaction? She has liberated her and they can be together now. She does not understand, but she hurts.

She hurts so much that she does not even fight when the police come to take her away.


	4. Eighteen to Twenty-Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: gun violence

Oksana does not speak at her trial and she does not pay attention to how long they say she will be in prison. It does not matter. Her life is over anyway. Without Anna, she has nothing. Nothing. NOTHING. Even fancy clothes will not fix the emptiness in her chest right now, but she doesn’t have those, either. She has four stone walls, a bed and a toilet. So, she has nothing.

Oksana is harassed daily by some of the older women and she is beaten with guard sticks when she defends herself. She prefers the beatings to letting herself be harassed, so she is often black and blue.

She cleans toilets and drains and showers for eight hours of the day, and somehow they are always filthy again the next. It is very unsatisfying work.

***

Oksana is nineteen when she meets Nadia.

She is on the ground in the yard, in too much pain to get up after another brutal beating, and everyone has learned to steer clear of her. So when she sees a sweet young thing coming toward her, she is confused. Why would this girl approach her? Is she stupid? Does she want to die? Because if Oksana is stuck here anyway, she does not mind getting extra time for killing.

But this girl must not know. Must not know who she is or what she is doing on the ground. Must not know she has been beaten for choking another inmate almost to death... over a basketball.

This girl stops in front of her, leans down, and presses something into her hand, then walks away.

Oksana is stunned. She looks down at her hand and her eyebrows are lifting before she realizes it, but she forces them back down. In her hand are pain killers. How did this girl get them and how does this girl know Oksana needs them?

Oksana shoves all four into her mouth and ignores the taste as she chews. When she swallows, she rests her head on the concrete and waits for relief.

Later, when she can walk, Oksana finds the girl and corners her. Literally. “Who are you?” she demands.

“My name is Nadia.”

“Why did you give me pain killers?” If Nadia answers wrong, Oksana is going to snap her neck.

Nadia blushes and looks at the floor. “You are pretty.”

Shocked twice in one day, this is a record, and Oksana’s eyes widen. Strangely, this is a good enough answer. This answer will not get Nadia’s neck snapped. This answer is something Oksana knows how to deal with. Of course she is pretty. Nadia is not lying. Since Nadia is not lying, she will get to live. “You gave me your pain killers because I am pretty?” she cannot help herself from asking. It has been a year since Anna and no one has called her pretty in this horrible place.

“Yes,” Nadia says. “I want you to like me.”

“Because I am pretty.”

“Yes.”

Oksana fucks her right there against the wall. “I will need more pain killers later if you want me to be able to do that again,” she says after, and walks away.

***

Nadia keeps trying to get to know her and Oksana tells her nothing. She fucks Nadia when Nadia gives her things, and other than that she does not think about Nadia at all.

She thinks about Anna. She thinks about Dad and Pyotr. Once in awhile she thinks about Darya. She still has the gold hoop earrings and diamond pendant. The prison will give them back to her when she gets out.

She touches herself thinking about her jewelry and the clothes she will have once she leaves this place. She does not let Nadia touch her, ever. Her body still belongs to Anna even if her mind does not.

Nadia cries about it sometimes, and when she cries, Oksana leaves. Crying is very uncomfortable and she does not like it. She does not like to see it or hear it or even know it is happening. She has told Nadia this, but Nadia still cries, so Oksana still leaves.

***

When Oksana is twenty, she is tired of taking the beatings so she pulls a move from juvenile detention and tears out a chunk of her least favorite guard’s throat.

Only this makes the beating worse because now there are multiple guards at once, and she can barely breathe when they throw her in solitary.

Solitary is disgusting. There is no bed and the floors are filthy, and Oksana shudders because she cannot move to get away from the dirt and grime and piss. She does not have the energy. She knows some of her ribs are broken.

She does not know how many days they keep her in the hole, but they do not let her out to shower and they do not speak to her even when she tries to make conversation through the meal slot.

It is disgusting, but most of all, it is boring. She is so bored that she would almost rather be letting Nadia get to know her.

She tries singing but it hurts her ribs. She cannot dance because she can barely sit up. Everything hurts, and a few times when she can no longer take the smells of the tiny box, she vomits. Then it is worse because they will not let her clean it up.

When they finally let her out, she thinks it has been over a week because she is too thin, she is weak and she is so dirty she cannot see her skin in some places.

She stays in the shower for hours. She scrubs herself clean over and over and she washes her hair four or five times, and she takes a deep breath of the smell of her skin... and it smells delicious. She smells delicious, and she cannot remember ever being so happy to take a shower. She has always liked to be clean, but this is like holy water.

She has to touch herself in front of the guard in exchange for such a long time in the shower, but she would be doing that anyway so she does not care at all. She has always used her body to get what she wants; what she needs, and this is no different.

She is so happy to see her bed that she thinks she actually smiles. She crawls into it and moans, rubbing her face into her pillow until she feels smothered and has to stop. She turns onto her back and stares at the ceiling and just breathes in the comparatively fresh air. She is just so happy. She will never go to the hole again. Never.

She fucks Nadia extra gentle tonight, and extra long, and when Nadia inevitably wants to touch her and she refuses, she leaves at the first sign of tears. Some things in life are constant. Some things will never change. Oksana will never stay in a room with someone who is crying. It makes her skin crawl and her nerves itch. It makes her feel like she is inside out.

She goes back to her cell and appreciates her bed some more, and she looks forward to cleaning bathrooms tomorrow because it is something to do.

***

Oksana is twenty-one when Nadia tells her she loves her. Oksana lies and says it back because if she doesn’t, then Nadia will stop giving her things and stop letting Oksana fuck her, and sometimes Oksana desperately needs to tear someone apart, and Nadia lets her do that so graciously that yes, she lies, and she says she loves Nadia.

Oksana does not love anyone. Not even Anna anymore. The person she comes closest to loving is herself, but even that she cannot be sure of. She does not think she loves herself. She likes herself and admires herself and thinks she is fabulous and beautiful, but she is pretty sure she does not love herself, because she does not know how.

***

Oksana is twenty-two when Nadia tells her she will be escaping soon. She is sorry that she cannot bring Oksana with her, but she says she will come back for Oksana if she can.

“How are you escaping?” Oksana asks casually, as if she is merely curious.

“There is a man coming to see me next week. He will take me out.”

Oksana chews her fingernail; tries to look nervous. “But that could be dangerous. You do not know this man, do you?”

“No, but how dangerous could it be? He is getting me out of here.”

“What if he is a pervert? What if he is a rapist? You had better let me meet with him first to make sure he is not a rapist.”

Nadia’s eyes go wide. Oksana fights the urge to pump her fist in victory, because the look Nadia gives her is most definitely going to lead to victory. “How will you know?” Nadia asks, breathless.

“I will know,” Oksana says. “Do not worry. I will spend five minutes with this man and I will know. If he is safe, I will come back to tell you, and send you to see him.”

“Thank you,” Nadia says, and see? Oksana knows she was always going to win.

***

Oksana sits across the table from a man with white hair and a white beard, and they stare at each other.

“You are not Nadia.”

“Nope.”

“Where is Nadia?”

“What do you want with her?” Oksana tilts her head and enjoys the frustrated look on the man’s face. “What is the price of exit?”

He laughs. “It is too steep for you. You will not want to pay this price.”

She levels a gaze at him that has felled many opponents in the past. “Try me.”

“How many people are in this room?”

He expects her to look around, she knows this. She does not move her eyes as she answers him. “Not including us? Three. A guard behind me and two civilians at the table to our right.”

He raises an eyebrow, and she thinks so far so good. She thinks he is impressed. He should be impressed, because Oksana is smart, and she will do whatever it takes to get out of here.

“Okay. You want the price? Here is the price. If you can kill the guard behind you in... let me say less than ten minutes, I will take you.”

Oksana’s eyes flash with excitement. She feels it low in her belly. “You do not think I will kill him. You do not think I have killed before?”

“I do not care about anything other than you killing the guard behind you in less than... now it is nine minutes.”

Oksana’s blood heats up. She hasn’t stolen any of the guards’ guns because she has not had a way out before. But this man is mistaken if he thinks this will be difficult for Oksana. It will not be difficult.

She gets up and asks the guard to take her back to her cell, and when he turns around to unlock the door to the cell block, she wrests his gun from his holster and flips off the safety, and she shoots him through the base of his skull. He is dead before he hits the floor.

Oksana does not like half measures. She shoots the two civilians, one in the face and one in the throat, and then she turns back to the white-haired man, who she is pleased to note looks very excited. In an understated way, of course.

“I get an A Plus, yes?” she asks, and he is not paying attention to what she says because he has his phone out and he is texting someone. “Wow, that is _rude_ ,” she scolds him, shaking her head.

Before she knows it, there is a commotion all around and the white-haired man is dragging her out of the visiting room and toward the front doors. She barely has time to wonder how he gets the doors unlocked before she is whisked into a vehicle and they are on their way.


	5. Twenty-Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: more gun violence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to those who have commented so far. Comments inspire.

“Stop,” Oksana says suddenly. “There is something I need to get from holding.”

The white-haired man looks at her as if she is crazy. She thinks he should already know this. She has just shot three people without blinking.

“Stop the car,” Oksana insists. “Take me to the place they keep our things. I am not going without them.”

“What is wrong with you?” the man yells, and Oksana just stares at him.

Finally he mutters in Russian, which she will not speak anymore, and the car skids to a stop.

“Do you have any more guns? I do not know how many people I will have to shoot,” she says, holding her hand out as she opens the door.

“I am coming with you,” the man says. “You are not getting out of my sight.”

She wonders if it is because she is too valuable to the people he works for to risk her being killed, or if it is because he thinks she will take too long. Either way, she does not care. “Fine.” She shrugs.

He gives her another gun and she takes off the safety, holding both as they approach the doors to the storage building. It is connected to the main building but has its own side door, and that is where they are headed.

Oksana shoots first, watching one guard go down and waiting for the white-haired man to shoot the other one. When she sees he does not have a gun, she rolls her eyes and takes the shot. “Why did you insist to come with me if you are not going to shoot anyone?” she mutters, bending down to unhook the keyring from the first guard’s belt.

She lets them in and stares unhappily at the rows and rows and rows of boxes.

“Oksana Astankova,” she says, expecting the man to search half while she moves to one side and starts looking.

“You want me to search or you want me to have your back?” he asks.

“You cannot have my back without a gun,” she snorts, rifling through boxes with a casual quickness.

“No, but I can tell you if someone is coming,” he says, and she thinks he just does not want to look through boxes.

“I will hear if someone is coming,” she says. “Come on... maybe you will find something you like. Who knows what they have in here? There could be moneyyyy...”

Some of the boxes do have money and she takes as much as she can stuff into her jumpsuit, and she finally sees the man start going through stuff, which makes her smirk. She knows she is very convincing. This man is a stranger, and still she knows how to get inside his head. Her teachers were right, she is very smart.

“Found it,” she says, grabbing the box with her things in it.

“Wait, I am not done.”

She laughs her loudest laugh and leaves him inside, returning to the car.

He follows a few seconds later, grumbling, and they both get in.

“What were you doing in there?” the driver snaps, taking off at a ridiculous speed.

“Nothing,” the man says quickly. “We searched for Oksana’s things and got out.”

Oksana thinks that if the driver knows they were stealing together, the white-haired man will be in trouble. This thought makes her happy and she bounces a little in her seat, then looks out the window. She will not ask where they are going, because anywhere is better than here.

***

They stop hours later at a gas station and the white-haired man turns around in his seat to look at her. “Konstantin.”

She looks at him. “...ople?”

“What?”

“Is this like a guessing game? One of us says the beginning of a word and the other guesses the end?”

He gets it and his eyes narrow. “No. That is my name. Konstantin.”

“Konstantin. Konstantin and Oksana. Oksana and Konstantin. Oksantin. We will make great partners.”

His eyes bug. “We are not partners!” he snaps.

She shrugs and slinks down in her seat, putting her feet up on the back of his chair on either side of his headrest.

“Take your feet off the seat.”

“No.”

“Take your feet off!” He smacks them and she puts them down. “This is not my car. Do not put your feet on the seats!”

“What if I take my shoes off?”

“No.”

“You are boring.”

“I would rather be boring than dead. Now behave,” he says as the driver returns.

She takes a good look at the driver for the first time. He looks like a weasel, sort of. Small little face and glasses that don’t look right, and she thinks if he opens his mouth she will be able to see weasel teeth. He is terrible looking and she hates him already. She knows he is the reason that Konstantin will not let her put her feet up. She imagines what would happen if she reached forward and wrapped her fingers around his weaselly throat...

But she cannot do that, because she does not yet know who she is dealing with, she only knows they are important enough to be able to break people out of prison, and information is power. When she has information, then she will decide if she will kill this weasel.

“What is your name?”

He looks at her in the rearview mirror. “Why do you want to know?”

“Because I can’t keep calling you Weasel, I think...”

“Oksana!” Konstantin bellows and his voice could maybe shake the car if it wasn’t moving.

“What?” she asks, putting her feet on the back of Weasel’s seat now.

In a flash, the car is stopped, the smell of burning rubber fills her nostrils, and there is a muzzle pressed against her forehead.

“I will shoot you right here, you wretched little girl,” Weasel says, and if he expects her to shake, or cry, or beg, then he is dumber than he looks. Which is _really_ dumb.

She just shrugs and flicks a piece of imaginary dirt from her shoulder.

“No,” Konstantin says. “You do not want to do that. She is _good_ , I promise you. We can straighten her attitude later, but she is just what we have been looking for.”

Weasel tightens his face even more, and it is hideous, and then he sighs and takes the gun away from her head, turns back around and starts driving again.

Konstantin gives her the dirtiest look she has ever seen, and she blows him a kiss. She leaves her feet on Weasel’s seat.

“His name is Paul,” Konstantin grumps like he can read her mind. “And he will kill you if you push him too far, so behave yourself, for shit sake.”

She puts her feet down just so she can lean forward and get right into Konstantin’s personal space. “Do you think I am afraid of dying?” she asks, her voice low. “My life is shit. Death would be a party.”

“Your life is about to be wonderful, so stop trying to get Paul to kill you.” Konstantin turns back around.

Oksana scoffs and leans back, turning her head to look out the window. How does he know what will be wonderful? She thinks he is just trying to watch his own ass. If she is killed by _Paul_ , then Konstantin will not have a recruit to show to his other bosses. “You don’t know what is wonderful,” she says under her breath.

***

It turns out Konstantin does know what is wonderful, because he takes her to Paris and gives her keys to a flat that is all for her, all by herself, to decorate as she pleases with the shitload of money he gives her.

She does not know what to expect when she turns the key and opens the door, but as she steps inside, she feels... home. This is home. This could be home. It is perfect. Once it is filled with things she loves, it will be perfect.

“Oksana—”

“No!” she snaps, spinning to face him, as if that name will ruin everything, because maybe it will. This flat is not for Oksana. She will be someone else. She can be anyone she likes, she only has to think it.

She remembers the perfume that had drawn Anna closer, and her breath escapes in a rush.

“Villanelle,” she tells Konstantin. “I will be Villanelle. I am Villanelle.” The name fills her with warmth, and she will touch herself thinking about it as soon as she gets some furniture.

If he is surprised or bothered, it does not show. “Villanelle,” he says, like he doesn’t care what she is called, and he hands her a cell phone. “I will be in touch.”

She stares at him. “That’s it?”

“What, did you want me to help you decorate?”

She smirks and shoves him out the door. “Bye.” And she slams it.

***

She spends the rest of the day shopping, paying extra for immediate delivery of her bed and bureaus. She brings home too many bags of clothes and toiletries and linens to carry by herself so she pays the Uber driver to bring half of them upstairs.

Once she is alone, she chooses light pink silk sheets and makes her new bed. She loves how fluffy her pillows are.

She hangs up her new clothes and takes her toiletries into the bathroom, putting them all where she wants them, and then she takes a shower.

She almost comes undone at the smell of her shampoo. This is what luxury smells like.

Villanelle will _never_ have clothes that don’t fit or a mattress with no sheets or shoes that hurt her feet or mismatching socks or two-day-old sandwiches and half-full boxes of juice. She will _never_ suffer what Oksana suffered. Villanelle will not be beaten or used or discarded. She will do the beating. She will do the using. She will do the discarding. Villanelle will be untouchable.

Villanelle is untouchable.


	6. Twenty-Three

Konstantin buys Villanelle a cake for her birthday and then teaches her how to fight. He is impressed with her natural instincts, but he teaches her technique. It does not take long for her to be able to beat whoever he pits against her, in any discipline.

He teaches her how to pick locks silently and quickly. She thinks she could have figured this one out on her own, but she lets him think he is being amazing and helpful. He only lets her take a break to eat once she can pick ten locks in a row in under fifteen seconds each.

He has a bloody nose by the time she is eating, but she is now an expert in lockpicking.

He takes her to an abandoned parking lot and teaches her how to break into cars without tripping alarms. Then he teaches her how to hotwire them. She tells him this is useless because she does not know how to drive, and he smacks her upside the back of the head and tells her that is not the point.

He teaches her how to shoot a fucking bow and arrow. This, she thinks, is the most ridiculous skill yet. She wants to try shooting an apple off his head, but he says no. So typical. He is the worst. She lets one arrow fly too close to him, too far from the target, so he knows she did it on purpose even though she promises she didn’t, and he threatens to take away her flat, so she behaves.

He hands her a book of poisons and tells her she has twenty-four hours to memorize every one’s name, its effects, where to find ingredients, and how to make it. When she does that, he gives her a book of antidotes to memorize, and it has as much information as the book of poisons, but this one he tells her to memorize in twelve hours. She feels like she is being fast tracked in her new career.

“Konstantin... the murder industry must be really desperate, because you are moving very fast with my training.”

She sees a smirk before he hides it, just a tiny, pathetic twitch of his lips, but she sees it. “Maybe you are just a very good student.”

She narrows her eyes at him. “I fucked the last person I was a good student for. Are you trying to fuck me, Konstantin?”

Now he actually _laughs_. “No, Villanelle.”

“Good. That is good.” She eyes him as she holds the book of antidotes. “Why are you not trying to fuck me? I know I am good looking.” She asks it casually, almost with a touch of humor, but his answer will be very important, because it will tell her whether to believe him.

He is laughing again, and then he is running his hands over his face and lets out a sigh. “There is more to fucking than being good looking,” he finally says. “You are too young for me. I would not be able to keep up with you." He checks to see if she’s buying it.

She is not sure if she is.

“Sex get in the way of business. This business is too important to become distracted. The bosses? They would not like this, if I have sex with you. They would probably fire me or kill me. So you are safe. No need to worry.”

She stares at him, trying to figure out why she doesn’t quite believe him, and when the truth hits her, it hits her square in the face and her jaw is going slack before she can decide to hide her reaction to this very disturbing news. “You are not attracted to me!” She shouts without meaning to.

“This is not true, Villanelle,” he says. “You are very beautiful. I am _so_ attracted to you. I just like to stay living. You too, yes?”

She is devastated and she slowly feels her way to the nearest bench to sit down, her eyes unfocused. “You are not attracted to me,” she says again. This is not the way of things. The way of things is that men are attracted to her and she gets to be the one to say it will never happen. Then when she needs something from them, she can tease them for a while before she goes back to saying it will never happen.

“Eh, no,” he finally admits. “You are too bratty.”

“Bratty!” She is shouting again.

“Calm down, you are attracting attention.” His eyebrows are furrowed now.

She punches him in the face. “I am dangerous, I am not bratty,” she says, dropping her voice low.

“Ah!” He grunts and covers his bloody nose with his hands. “You are both,” he snaps at her and walks away.

He is the worst. During the times when he is not the best, he is the worst. She likes him a little and so she is glad he does not want to fuck her, but she still does not appreciate when someone is not attracted to her.

***

Next is a practical lesson. She is tasked with acquiring the ingredients for five different poisons, making them, and bringing them to Konstantin. He is going to test them on some people the bosses have stashed in a basement or something. She does not care who they are, she only cares about her poisons being the best. Working the fastest. Causing the most damage.

So she does a little bit of extra research on each one and finds modern ways to enhance their speed and volatility – because this poisons book is really old and there are better catalysts these days.

“That is not the way it is supposed to work,” Konstantin says after Paul tries out her first one.

“I made them better,” she says. “You are welcome.”

“This job is about following orders,” he barks at her. “Did you change the others?”

“Of course I did. I told you, I made them better. Why are you not happy about this? They work faster and they are nastier. Why are you complaining? Is something wrong with your brain, Konstantin?”

His hands clench into fists and his face turns a little red. “Following. Orders!” he says again, like each word is its own sentence. “Go do it again, and follow the recipes! Do not personalize these poisons, Villanelle!”

“That is stupid!” she screams, her arms flailing.

“I do not care if you think it is stupid!” he screams back.

She punches him again and then before she can blink he is choking her against the wall until she cannot breathe, and she claws at his hand, but he is stronger than he looks so she stops fighting and just lets him choke her. This is when he stops. When she stops fighting. She sucks in air with a wheezing sound, leaning forward and bracing her hands on her knees while she collects herself. For some reason he did not seem to want to hit her back, but apparently choking was fine? What belief system was this?

When she can breathe normal again, she frowns. “You almost killed me. Then what would you do with your life?”

He points one finger at her. “Behave. Go and redo the other four poisons in the boring, correct way and don’t fuck it up.”

She still does not understand why anyone would want _less_ effective poisons. Inefficiency is so unattractive. But... she wants to keep her new job even if her new bosses seem old-fashioned and do not want to upgrade to the current century, so she does what she is told, even if she grumbles about it the entire time.

***

When she is back home after the boring demonstration of very typical and not unique poisons, she is going to have something to eat when she catches sight of her throat in the mirror at her vanity. She gasps. There are finger-shaped bruises all over one side of her throat and a thumb-shaped one on the other side. She leans closer; turns slightly to the side; examines the marks. They are so beautiful. She touches them. They do not hurt. She strokes them.

She is still hungry, but she is distracted now, drawn in and held in thrall. She undresses in front of the mirror and slides a hand over her right breast while she is still touching the bruises on the left side of her neck. Her mouth opens a little. She leans even closer to the mirror, pinching at her nipple with little effect, her head tilted as she stares at her throat. Such a curious thing, to have finger-shaped marks on your neck. Something new to be fascinated by.

She wonders if other women would touch themselves like this. Staring at bruises, pinching and stroking their bodies, feeling their nipples get hard when they think about being choked. She thinks they probably don’t, but it does not matter. She has always known she is different. Right now, it is okay.

She puts a finger inside herself and turns to the other side, placing a thumb over the thumb print. Hers is smaller. She can see the edges of the bruise peeking out around her thumb. She wonders why it doesn’t hurt to touch. It had hurt when it was happening.

She thinks about the way she had not been able to breathe; puts another finger inside herself as she scratches lightly at the marks on her throat.

She likes looking at herself when she comes.

After, she fries herself a steak.

***

The next place Konstantin takes her is for someone to show her how to override security consoles and run feedback loops on surveillance cameras.

“I will rather have an assistant to do this for me,” she decides aloud.

“There are no assistants,” Konstantin says, because _of course_ there aren’t. There are never all of the things she wants. They also do not have hoverboards. She says she will settle for a Segway if she has to, but they do not have those either.

She will be doing a lot of walking in this job, she thinks.

“Now pay attention!” he snaps.

“I am!” she snaps back.

He makes her do it once without the tech’s help before they leave.

On the way to the car she takes off her jacket and shows him her throat. “You left bruises on me,” she tells him as they walk.

“I am sorry about that,” he says.

“What? Why? They are very good bruises. I masturbated to them in front of a mirror.”

“No, don’t do that,” he says, stopping to look her in the face. “I should not have lose my temper with you. I should not have choked you.”

“The orgasm could have been a little more powerful but it was okay,” she says with a shrug.

“Villanelle,” he says, and it is the softest she has heard his voice yet. “Really. I am sorry.”

“Stop apologizing, you are making me uncomfortable,” she says, rolling her shoulders, trying to get the feeling to fall off.

He sighs but he doesn’t push her any further, and they get in the car.

“What’s next?”

“Shooting range.”

“Really?” She gives him a look. “You have seen me with a gun. I do not need a shooting range.”

“I have seen you with a handgun. I need to see you with every kind of gun.”

She rolls her eyes. “Fine.”

***

The only one she has trouble with is the shotgun, because it is heavy and the recoil is strong. She stumbles backward the first few times, but is quickly able to compensate, and soon she is as good with it as she is with the others.

When he is satisfied, he takes her out to lunch.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” he says, staring at her.

“Why not?” she asks, cheeks puffed out with the amount of ravioli in her mouth.

“How do you eat like that?” He gestures vaguely toward her with one hand.

“Eat like what?” she asks with her mouth full.

“Like that!” He gestures again. “Like a bear. Or a really big football player. You do not eat like a lady.”

She snorts, piling in another forkful. “I do not do anything like a lady.”

“This is not true,” he says, grinning at her a little. “You dress like a lady.”

“Not always,” she says. “Remember the cargo pants and bomber jacket?”

“Okay most of the time you dress like a lady. But the way you eat? This is terrible.”

She deliberately chews with her mouth open, letting sauce dribble down her chin and bits of ravioli fall out.

He looks like he is going to get up and leave the table, and Villanelle counts this as a victory.

He stays, though. Oh well.

“You are getting your first job,” he says after a few minutes of _not_ watching her eat.

Her heart jumps but she doesn’t react. “Okay.”

“You are not allowed to do anything except research until I approve your plan and explicitly tell you to proceed. Understand? You research, you make a plan. I will decide if it is good plan.”

“Why are you so boring? Were you a sloth in a previous life, Konstantin? I am really concerned for you.”

He slams his hand down on the table. “Research. Plan. Permission. Understand?”

“I am not stupid.”

“No, you are not stupid, but you are stubborn and reckless. Research. Plan. Permission,” he says again. “Do. You. Understand?”

“Yeee-eees!” she shouts, watching him cringe at the volume of her voice.

“I will not take you out to eat again if you do not behave. You are disturbing the other customers with your loudness.”

“Well you are disturbing me with your lack of being interesting.”

He huffs, but she thinks he is not really upset. She thinks he knows to expect this behavior from her and he is not surprised, and maybe he likes her a little bit the way she likes him. Not like a friend, but more like an annoying family member. So annoying. Like... the _most_ annoying. But family.


	7. Twenty-Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Villanelle's first job. **TW: graphic depictions of violence TW: mention of incest that did not actually happen TW: use of drugs to incapacitate people TW: double homicide**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Most of the Spanish in this chapter is easy to figure out from context and Villanelle's thoughts, but the part she's talking about her brother I'll translate below.
> 
> Yo tuve un hermanito. Esta muerto - I had a little brother. He's dead.  
> Lo mataste? - you kill him?  
> Mi? No. Pienso que fue mi madre. - Me? No. I think it was my mother.  
> Jodido - fucked up

Villanelle is crouched in a tree. A fucking tree. Why? Because this is her life now. Research. Plan. Permission. And her first job lives in the middle of fucking nowhere surrounded by nothing but forest. If she wants to observe anything, she will have to stay in this very uncomfortable and scratchy tree, in this disgusting forest that smells like raccoon shit. Or maybe badger. It smells like shit is the point. When she is done for the day she is going to bathe in perfume.

Movement catches her eye and her ears and she focuses.

“ _No. Dios mio, no. No puedo_.”

Villanelle rolls her eyes. _You can’t do what, you ineffectual man_? Maybe his ineffectualness is why her new bosses want her to kill him. He is also really ugly. She had enchiladas for lunch and she hopes they do not come back up, because looking at this man’s ugly face is nauseating.

“ _No voy a matar nadie. ¡Nadie! ¿Me escuchas?_ _Puedes si quieres, pero mi, no_.”

Wowwwwwwwww. He does not want to kill anyone. He is the worst. She really wants to just shoot him now, but _Paul_ will shoot her if she does. It has to be untraceable, clever, discreet. She is not going to be discreet, she will draw the line there, but she will be untraceable and clever.

“ _Si tocas mi hermanita—no. Callete. ¡Callete! No toques mi hermanita, cabrón_.”

Villanelle perks up. Little sister? Oh, yes. She knows exactly what she is going to do. She will have to lie and give Konstantin a fake plan, because he will never let her kill this man’s little sister too, but her real plan is too perfect to let Konstantin ruin it.

***

She feeds Konstantin some bullshit about slipping some shellfish into the man’s Chinese food, because she has learned that he gets Chinese delivery every Friday night, and he is very, very allergic to shellfish.

Konstantin approves her plan and she gets the green light to proceed, and that is all she needs. She is giddy as she stalks the little sister even though the black wig she is wearing is very uncomfortable and pulling at the roots of her actual hair. She also really hates the maintenance uniform she is wearing, but how else is she going to get into the little sister’s apartment?

Once she’s in and explaining what she’s there to repair, she squirts twenty-seven point two milligrams of PCMG into the little sister’s mouth and waits for it to take effect. She holds her hand over the struggling girl’s mouth to keep her quiet, and when the attempts to scream finally stop and the girl’s eyes go glassy, Villanelle takes her hand away. Getting her to the car will be easy, but she wishes she had made Konstantin teach her how to drive. Oh well.

***

She makes it to the target’s house without crashing the car, which is saying something because she comes close a couple of times (this girl is very chatty on the PCMG even if her words are slurred and difficult to understand, and she will not stop talking to Villanelle, and it is distracting for someone who has never driven before, okay?).

The target comes outside looking excited until he sees that his sister is not alone, and he registers extreme worry. Villanelle is quick to reassure him.

She pretends not to speak Spanish very well. “ _Yo... soy_? Friend. _Amiga_ Valeria. _Es enf...erma. ¿Enferma_? She is sick...” She glances between him and the passenger’s seat like she gives _a lot_ of fucks.

“ _¡Ay, no! Te ayudo_ ,” he says with wide eyes, rushing to help his sister out of the car, and together they get her into the house and onto the sofa. “ _¿_ _Qué pasó?_ ”

“Sick, _enferma_ ,” Villanelle says again, miming a vomiting motion.

“ _¿_ _Quién_... who... who do this?” He tries English.

Villanelle shrugs and looks heartbroken that she can’t give him any more information.

“ _Hermaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnooooooooo_ ,” Valeria says with a stupid grin. She is sweaty and probably her brain is melted a little but she is grinning and she looks so ridiculous. Villanelle cannot wait to begin.

Villanelle points to herself. “Amy,” she says.

“Victor,” he says, sitting down beside his sister and leaning over to feel her forehead with his cheek.

Villanelle discreetly snaps a picture with her burner phone and tries not to laugh. He puts his lips on her forehead after, and this is even better, so she snaps another picture, and finally gets to work.

Victor gets forty-two milligrams of the PCMG because he is much heavier, and she dodges his enraged attacks several times in a row before he collapses to the floor.

“You could not collapse onto the sofa?” she asks, annoyed. “Thank you so much, Victor.” Her British accent is gone, replaced by her native one, and if she strains her back dragging him onto the sofa she is going to kill him twice.

It is not easy, but she manages, and she takes a minute to breathe, the effort having winded her. She is very annoyed.

She wants this to look like a murder-suicide so she puts on gloves. Konstantin has told her that her fingerprints are untraceable now, but she does not want any fingerprints besides these two siblings to show up, untraceable or not. Because even if they could not determine whose fingerprints were there, they would suspect a third person was involved, and her murder-suicide setup would not hold up.

Soooo, the gloves, because she is hungry. They cannot really move, and if they do move, it will be like little tiny slugs, scooting along without arms or legs, so she looks in the refrigerator and helps herself to some leftover pasta salad. “This is _really_ good,” she tells Victor. “It is the olives, I think. They really bring all of the flavors together. _Muy bueno_.” She rubs her stomach for emphasis and when she’s finished, she pockets the spoon with her saliva on it and puts the empty bowl in the sink with the other dirty dishes. It all looks very normal.

She walks back over to the incapacitated siblings and sighs. “ _Yo tuve un hermanito_ ,” she says thoughtfully. “ _Está muerto_.”

“ _¿_ _Lo mataste_?” Victor asks, his speech very slow. Maybe so slow that she could hum the entire Jeopardy theme song before he was done with his tiny sentence.

“ _¿_ _Mi? No. Pienso que fue mi madre_.”

“ _Jodido_ ,” he says, taking half the Jeopardy theme song this time.

She laughs, because he is right. It is fucked up. And then she takes the knife from her waistband and leans down so she is the height of a seated Victor, then slashes his sister from shoulder to hip and across the belly and stabs about a dozen times while Victor tries to move with little success. The _piece de resistance_ , she cuts Valeria’s throat from ear to ear and ducks out of the way of the arterial spurt so she will not interrupt the spatter pattern.

Victor is crying and this is perfect because it will just lend more credibility to the scandal she wants to project, and when the blood stops spurting so violently and is just dribbling from the gaping throat wound, she moves forward again and wraps Victor’s fingers around the knife.

It is easy to maneuver his drugged limbs and she makes him cut his own throat. She is behind him so she does not need to worry about being in the way, but she lets go of the knife and steps to the side so she can see the life drain out of his eyes. This had been her favorite moment with Max... the moment the lights went out. As if their dimming and sudden blackness only illuminated her own soul.

She feels very powerful and aroused, and she is shaking as he takes his last breath. She breathes in as he does not, and she stands motionless for several minutes just soaking in the _death_.

Finally she shudders, and she is wet, and she will go home and touch herself before she takes a shower. This she knows with certainty.

She snaps photos of her artwork and texts Konstantin to pick her up on the access road in an hour, and goes outside. She puts the bloody gloves into her pocket, pulls a new pair from her other pocket and puts them on so she can wipe her prints from the steering wheel of Valeria’s car, and the car doors and the gear shift, and she moves the seat forward because she had moved it back to drive. She is taller than Valeria.

She walks through the forest, and you know what? The smell of shit is gone. Now it smells like freedom. And money. And sex. Maybe she will not masturbate after all... maybe she will find someone to fuck.

She meets Konstantin on the road and gets into his car.

“Did he swell up like a balloon?”

“Plan B.”

His eyes widen. “What do you mean, Plan B? There was no Plan B. What is this Plan B? What did you do, Villanelle?” His face is already red and she has not even shown him the photos yet.

“Food allergies are so boring, Konstantin. You cannot stifle my creative spirit.”

The car comes screeching to a halt. “What did you _do_ , Villanelle?” he repeats, louder.

“Can I help it if he was fucking his little sister and she did not want to be with him anymore so he killed her and then killed himself? How can you blame me for this, Konstantin? Really, you need to think about what you are saying.”

“VILLANELLE!” he roars, and she makes a disgusted face, leaning away from him and into the car door.

“That is so loud,” she complains.

His hands are shaking and she knows he wants to hit her or choke her, but it is not her fault that he wants her to be boring and she cannot do it. She will never be able to do it. She is unique and passionate and she will never kill someone by putting an allergen into their food, because that just is not _her_. Her kills will always have flair and zest, and if her new bosses do not like it they will have to kill her.

“Do you know what they are going to do to you now? They are going to take you from me and send you to Dasha Duzran.”

“That gymnast lady you told me about? Why would they do that? I am sure she will not want me. You and I are a team. I will stay with you.”

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “You will not have a choice. They will send you because I cannot control you. She will control you.”

“She will not.” Villanelle’s eyes narrow. “She will think she is, but she will not be.”

“Why can’t you just behave?” he asks, putting his face in his hands.

She feels uncomfortable with his level of emotion. “It is not who I am. I will never be boring, Konstantin, and I will never be controlled. The bosses will have to kill me if they want to control me.”

“Do not say that!” he snaps. “Do not talk like this. You will learn discipline from Dasha and then they will let you come back to me. Okay? Just behave.”

She snarls at him and turns to stare out the window. She is done talking. And now she does not even want to find someone to fuck.


	8. Twenty-Four to Twenty-Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Villanelle's time with Dasha... and then mercifully back with Konstantin. **TW: physical abuse**

Villanelle does not like being with Dasha. It makes her miss Konstantin very much, even though she will not say this to anyone.

Dasha doesn’t bother wasting time with beating her... when Dasha is unhappy, Dasha breaks her bones.

The first time, it is one finger. This, Villanelle knows, is just a warning. It happens because Dasha wants her to wear something boring and she chooses her own fashionable outfit instead.

There is no speaking; no warning. Dasha simply grabs her wrist and twists her left index finger until it snaps.

Villanelle screams out of sheer surprise, because she does not scream when things hurt. She is used to being hurt. Konstantin is the only one who does not hurt her, and she aches to be back with him. For the first time in her life, she truly regrets her behavior. Not because she thinks she was wrong, but because she had been sent away again. This time to a horrible place.

She gets no medical attention so she makes herself a splint.

The second time, it’s three fingers.

Villanelle accidentally steps on a rock while they are staking out a target. The rock scrapes the concrete floor beneath them. The target does not even hear it, but Dasha’s eyes tell Villanelle that she has failed.

After the target is neutralized, Dasha breaks three of her fingers – including the one that has just healed.

She doesn’t scream this time. She makes a splint when they get home.

The third time, it’s her right arm.

Villanelle adds a bit of personal flair to a kill, just a little red “X” with lipstick on the woman’s cheek, and Dasha is enraged.

“What is wrong with you? You have been sent here because you make things too personal! Are you stupid, girl? Do you not know how to learn? Come over here, Oksana.”

Villanelle’s nostrils flare. She has told Dasha many times that her name is Villanelle, but the older woman refuses to call her this. And when Dasha calls her Oksana and snaps her radius, she _feels_ like Oksana. And she hates this. She hates this more than she hates the pain vibrating all the way up to her shoulder. She’d never wanted to feel like Oksana ever again after she had declared herself a new person, but this is out of her control. And she _hates_ it.

She wants to go home. She wants her flat in Paris and all of her things, and she wants to laugh and tease with Konstantin. She also wants her money. She is not allowed any money while she is training with Dasha. She must rely on the older woman for everything. Food, clothes, shelter. Nothing in this place is her own.

She feels sad... she is _so_ sad. She gets a cast on her arm only because she can’t work without one, not because Dasha cares that it hurts. Dasha does not care about her at all; does not even treat her like a person.

She cannot take it anymore after Dasha almost gets her killed.

“You are not ready.”

“I am ready.”

“Do not argue with me.”

“I have been here for almost a year. I am ready!”

“Fine. Go.” Dasha hands her the postcard.

It’s a setup. She realizes this as soon as she arrives in Copenhagen. There is something off about the air. She can smell the deceit.

She is left for dead at the bottom of a ravine, bloody and broken. She thinks she is going to die here. Everything hurts. Everything oozes and pulses and throbs. She is ready to give up.

***

It is Konstantin who finds her, eventually. She has no idea how long it’s been, she knows only pain, thirst and hunger. When she sees him walking toward her, she thinks she is hallucinating. But when he speaks, when he calls her name, _Villanelle_ , she cries.

He scoops her up as carefully as he can, she knows he’s being gentle, but her battered body protests and she just cries.

She registers being put into a car, and he’s sitting with her head in his lap, stroking her hair, and she finally lets herself black out.

***

When she wakes up she has no idea how long it’s been, and things are fuzzy and much less painful so she knows Konstantin has given her morphine or dilaudid. Probably dilaudid based on the fuzzy brain. But it’s not quite fuzzy enough to prevent her from saying what she needs to remember to say. “Setup,” she tells him the next time he comes into the room. “It was a setup.”

“Shh. I know,” he says, sitting in a chair beside her bed. “You are back for good. They will not take you away again. They know better now.”

Villanelle’s heart soars. “No more Dasha?”

Konstantin shakes his head. “No more Dasha.”

She lets herself sleep again on the wings of that freedom.

***

She’s been laid up for a _week_ and she is getting bored. “Will you play a game with me?”

“No. It is time for you to try to walk,” Konstantin says, and the only reason Villanelle does not pout at being told no is because she has been waiting for this moment, the moment she is allowed to get out of bed, and nothing could have made her happier than to hear this.

“YES!” she basically screams, laughing when he covers his ears.

“Villanelle!” he scolds, shooting her a fierce look, but all it does is endear him more to her.

She scoots to the edge of the bed and makes herself wait for him to help her to her feet. “God, you are old. You move like a corpse.”

“You would be a corpse if not for me so do not call me old,” he says, carefully pulling her arm around his shoulders and letting her lean on him as she stands.

Her legs are wobbly but she stands, and it’s not as painful as she’d thought it would be. She starts taking steps, and with every step she takes she feels more and more like herself again.

Soon she doesn’t need him and she walks around the room on her own (okay she shuffles, but who’s paying attention to details?).

When she’s back in bed about fifteen minutes later, she smiles at him. One of her genuine ones. “Thank you for coming to find me.”

“Are you kidding? You are so profitable,” he teases.

“Obviously,” she snorts. “I am the best.”

***

She is basically recovered by her birthday, but she doesn’t expect a big deal about it. The most she’s ever gotten is a cake or a cupcake so she figures it will just be another day. She’s almost ready to get back to work – the only symptoms she is still having are occasional bouts of shortness of breath, but those will go away in another week or so.

“It is my birthday,” she tells Konstantin anyway.

“Oh?” he asks, disinterested if she does say so. “How old

are you today?”

“Twenty-five. Don’t you have my file?”

“Do you really think I am going to go find your file and look up your age when I could just ask you right here and not have to move?”

“Old and lazy,” she says with a sigh, flopping onto the couch with her head in his lap.

“Get off me,” he says, pushing her head away, and she resists for an appropriate amount of time to frustrate him before she sits up.

“What did you get me?”

“I saved your life. This is good enough, isn’t it?”

“That was months ago,” she pouts.

“But you would not even be having a birthday without that, yes?”

She rolls her eyes and stomps out of the room. He is the worst. When he is not saving her life and carrying her so gently to the car and protecting her from having to go back with Dasha, he is the worst.

***

She’s listening to music through her earphones a few hours later when he knocks on her bedroom door. She’s not sure she wants to hear what he has to say if he did not get her a present. “What?” she barks.

He opens the door and peeks his head in, grinning. “Did you really think I wasn’t going to get you _anything_?”

She perks up and tears out her earphones and doesn’t bother shutting off her music as she bounds over to the door. “What did you get me? If it is not something good I am going to hate you and possibly kill you, so keep that in mind. And did you make me a cake?”

His grin disappears. “Do I look like someone who makes cakes, Villanelle?”

Her eyes narrow. “I will make my own cake, then.”

He does not seem any happier at that. “You do not look like someone who makes cakes either, Villanelle. We can go out to eat if you really must have cake.”

She scowls. “I hope you do not have children because you are very bad at birthdays. Where is my present?”

“Well,” he says with a frown, and he pulls an envelope from his jacket pocket and thrusts it at her. “It is just money. I know you need some because you haven’t been able to work. I would have gotten you some cloth—”

“How much money?” she asks, snatching the envelope from his hand and opening it. “And never buy me clothes. Ever. You would not know what to get for a beautiful woman like me.”

“So humble to the man who saved her life,” he says, shooting a glance skyward as if praying for strength.

There is a _lot_ of money in the envelope so she decides to be nice and kisses his cheek. “Thank you for saving my life. And thank you for the money. I will buy myself a wonderful cake and not share it with anyone.”

She skirts past him and is out the door in moments, heading for an exotic bakery a few miles away that makes the most amazing cakes she has ever seen. She has been on their website a lot lately, wondering how to get Konstantin to buy her a cake from there, but she will just do it herself.

She buys the most expensive cake on the menu and has it customized in addition to that; has them decorate it with iridescent pink frosting and white writing that says “Happy Birthday, Villanelle! You are the most amazing, beautiful, sexy, smart and talented person on Earth.”

When she sits down to eat it, the entire staff is staring at her. “What?” she asks, forking in a large, delicious bite.

“Did you—you bought that for yourself? For your own birthday?” one of the young men asks her.

“Mhmm. Why?” She dips her finger into the frosting and sucks it off suggestively. “Do you want some?”

“I-I-I’m working,” he stammers with a stupid smile.

“What time is your break?”

***

She shares her cake with him and fucks him in the alley behind the bakery, and she tosses the uneaten layers in the dumpster on her way home. Konstantin does not deserve any cake.


End file.
